Tennessee woman Christa Pike describes pain after failed execution

Death row inmate Christa Pike said Friday that she remained in constant pain and struggled to speak a month after surviving a lethal injection in Tennessee.

Her lawyers have urged Governor Bill Lee to reduce her death sentence to life imprisonment, but he has indicated that it will remain unchanged unless the courts intervene.

In her first public statement since the failed execution, Pike said she had expected to die but instead woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed.

"There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," she said. "My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak."

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during the September 30 execution attempt. Her lawyers said her arms were left burned and blistered. She spent the first few days in hospital unconscious and on a ventilator.

Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on whether a problem with the intravenous line caused the drug to collect in surrounding tissue rather than enter her bloodstream.

Lee ordered an investigation and postponed Tennessee's other lethal injection scheduled this year. The state's prison chief resigned.

Pike blamed the failed execution on "incompetence" and said her suffering extended beyond her physical injuries.

"There is pain in my mind and in my soul," she said.

She also expressed gratitude to the medical workers who saved her life and acknowledged the suffering of her victim's family.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and killing of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the crime, which she committed with her boyfriend.

"I continue to think about my victim's family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured," she said.

Lee told reporters this week: "I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts."

Pike dictated her statement to her legal team from the infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she returned after hospitalization.

"I don't know why I survived that night. I don't know what comes next," she said. "For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time."