Woman who survived two lethal injections is released and returned to prison in the US

Christa Pike, an American sentenced to death, was released from a hospital in the United States this Saturday (10) and was taken back to prison, where she will continue to receive medical care after an unsuccessful attempt by authorities to execute her in Tennessee, her lawyers said.

Pike has left a local hospital and is now at the Debra Johnson Rehabilitation Center, attorneys Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen of the Federal Defender Service of East Tennessee and Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of Post-Conviction Defense wrote in a joint statement. She was sentenced to death for a murder committed in 1995 and has been imprisoned for 30 years.

The American woman woke up in the hospital this week "irritated and confused" and will have a long recovery ahead after surviving the attempted execution on September 30, according to her lawyers. Previously, they believed she might be brain dead.

Pike, 50, was taken unconscious from the execution chamber to a hospital in the city of Nashville, in critical condition and with serious injuries to her arms, after surviving two injections at the maximum security Riverbend penitentiary.

This week, a Tennessee judge ordered state authorities to preserve all evidence related to the failed attempt to execute her, a move that one of her lawyers called the "first of many steps to preserve and enforce her constitutional rights."

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has suspended all executions for the remainder of the year while investigators look into Pike's botched execution and a similar case involving Tony Carruthers in May, when corrections officers failed to install intravenous lines.