Tennessee Halts Executions After Pike Lethal Injection Stalls

Tennessee suspended all executions after Christa Pike survived a September 30 lethal injection attempt during which an IV team spent nearly an hour failing to establish a usable line, according to a chronology filed by her lawyer in legal proceedings on October 22.

Randy Spivey's account describes four unidentified team members using roughly 10 needles across Pike's arms while repeatedly failing to secure a line. At several points they expressed concern her veins might have "blown." Pike grimaced and told them her arm was "really burning."

Jonathan Groner, an emeritus professor of clinical surgery at Ohio State University who studies execution methods, said the record showed "no clinician would give a caustic drug through an IV where it didn't flush easily." He called the level of incompetence "astounding, and difficult to comprehend."

At 7:05pm, about 30 minutes into the procedure, a team member requested a 24-gauge needle and moved it repeatedly. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta, said that size catheter is used for small children and that pushing Tennessee's 50cc dose of pentobarbital per arm through it carried no way to avoid blowing a vein. Two minutes later a team member said, "I think it is blown."

The team also attempted to locate a vein by ultrasound. Groner said proficiency with the technique requires hours of specialist training and up to 20 procedures, and that the record showed the team did not know how to use it. Saline at 7:23pm moved through the line only "with difficulty"; a minute later the team declared the IV set.

Pike's lawyers, citing Zivot's expert opinion, had warned Tennessee before the attempt that her veins were small and compromised. Zivot listed a poorly written protocol, no one in charge, unauthorized technology, and catheters too small for the purpose among the failures.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18. She spent several days on a ventilator after the failed attempt, returned to her prison cell after 10 days in hospital, and can now talk and walk. Tennessee has called off all executions pending review.