Emergency calls reveal confusion at Christa Pike execution

The time is 20:40 on September 30. Just over an hour earlier, the second dose of pentobarbital was injected into Christa Pike's forearm where she is strapped behind a drawn curtain at the high-security prison Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

She is still breathing and witnesses have heard her snoring.

Someone calls 911 and wants an ambulance there. The person in question cannot enter the code required for the alarm center to assess the call as genuine.

The operator contacts the emergency unit and says, loosely translated:

"So we have received a medical alert from Riverbend Prison. They state that they have carried out the execution - stating the person executed and the method of execution - and that they now need an ambulance because she is not breathing normally."

She continues:

"We are trying to find out if this is really something happening and if we need to send an ambulance and/or if you need police help, or if this is just someone calling for fun or trying to trick us."

At 21.03, the operator receives the message that superiors have said that the alarm is false.

The operator calls back the prison's central guard to double check. The time is then 21.07.

Operator: We received a call about a failed execution attempt at your facility and are now calling to confirm this.

Central guard: Who called you?

Operator: Maybe there's a sergeant I can talk to, or a manager who called you?

Central guard: Who called you?

Operator: We don't really know.

Central guard: As far as I know, no one from our facility has called you, so there is nothing to report at this time.

In parallel with the emergency personnel trying to verify the alarm, they are in contact with representatives of the prison's central control center. They state that if anyone would have raised the alarm, it would have been them. And they haven't sounded the alarm.

Meanwhile, one of Christa Pike's lawyers, Kelly Gleason, has also managed to sound the alarm.

"My client, Christa Gail Pike, is currently undergoing a state execution. She has gone through all the steps of the protocol and according to the latest information from the attorney present, she is still alive and breathing and in need of immediate life-saving care," Gleason said during the call, timestamped 8/21.

Three minutes later, 21.11, the prison confirms that it is a real alarm. At 9:14 p.m., the paramedics are let in through the gates to the institution.

The recordings have been released in a redacted state, after the AP requested access to them. They show that valuable time was wasted - it was half an hour between the first 911 call and paramedics being able to enter the prison.

According to the AP, neither the Tennessee Department of Corrections nor Pike's lawyers wanted to comment on the content of the emergency calls yet.

Christa Pike was immediately taken to hospital where she was cared for on a ventilator for several days. Last Tuesday she woke up from unconsciousness and could, to a limited extent, talk and with some help even walk. Her lawyers say she is "angry and confused".

On Saturday, her lawyers announced that she had been released from the hospital and returned to the prison where she had spent 30 years.