Death penalty: American woman conscious after failed execution

Christas Pike, who survived an execution attempt in the US state of Tennessee, is now conscious and able to speak, according to her lawyers. She will continue to receive intensive care treatment, her lawyers said. Her recovery is unprecedented from a medical perspective. However, it is still unclear what their chances of survival are. "Despite the severe damage she sustained to her arms, she remains handcuffed and tied to the bed," the statement said.

Pike had previously been unconscious and was on ventilator support at a Nashville-area hospital, according to her attorneys. The 50-year-old was transported from the Nashville prison by ambulance after the failed execution last Wednesday. The woman, sentenced to death for murder, survived the lethal injection.

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Pike was sentenced to death in 1996. She had confessed to torturing and killing a classmate with her boyfriend at the time a year earlier. She was one of the youngest women ever sentenced to death in the United States. The death penalty, scheduled for last Wednesday, would have been the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.