Death penalty: Christa Pike can walk again after failed execution

A week after her failed execution, the American Christa Pike can walk again. She was up and walking around her hospital room, her lawyer Stephen Ferrell told the BBC, citing colleagues who had contact with Pike. But she is still “a bit dazed” and occasionally forgets where she actually wants to go.

»There could be permanent damage. We don’t know that yet,” Ferrell continued. Pike's lawyers had previously said she was able to speak again but was mentally confused.

Last week, the convicted murderer in Nashville, Tennessee, survived two injections of the toxic drug pentobarbital. She was then taken to a clinic and given artificial ventilation. She woke up shortly before she was removed from life support due to suspected brain death.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Only 18 women have been executed in the United States in the past 50 years.