Source : Perth Now news
US death row inmate Christa Pike is awake and speaking almost a week after a failed execution attempt at a Tennessee prison, her lawyers say.
Pike, 50, is receiving critical medical treatment at a hospital in Nashville after she survived two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital on September 30, according to a statement from her attorneys, as cited by the BBC.
Her lawyers previously said Pike was unconscious as medical staff worked to removed the drug, a short-acting barbiturate that depresses the central nervous system, from her system after it was unsuccessful.
The attorneys described her recovery as “medically unprecedented,” while warning that her long-term prognosis remains uncertain. They said she is expected to face a long road to recovery.
She was serving a death sentence following her conviction for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat and tortured Slemmer before killing her after the three met at a job-training programme for troubled teenagers.
More to come…
