Christa Pike in Tennessee: After a failed execution, she can walk again

According to her lawyer, Christa Pike, sentenced to death, can get up and walk again a week after the failed execution in the US state of Tennessee. The 50-year-old moved for the first time in her hospital room, her lawyer Stephen Ferrell told the British broadcaster BBC, citing people who had contact with Pike. She is still mentally “a little dazed” and loses her train of thought easily. Her arms are still badly injured and can hardly be used. It is currently unclear whether she will suffer permanent damage. Although Ferrell assumes that her condition will continue to improve, she cannot rule out permanent consequences.

In addition, a Tennessee court on Wednesday ordered all evidence related to the botched execution to be preserved. It is still unclear whether the state will seek a new execution date. Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee has initially suspended further executions until the end of the year and ordered an independent investigation into the case.

According to authorities, Pike received the two doses of pentobarbital required by the execution protocol on Wednesday evening last week. Nevertheless, she survived. She was then taken to hospital unconscious. Earlier this week she had regained consciousness and begun to speak.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 years old at the time of the crime. Slemmer was tortured and eventually killed in 1995 in a remote area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.