911 calls released in Christa Pike’s botched execution: ‘The person is not yet deceased’

On the night of Christa Pike’s botched execution, 911 callers reported that she was unconscious and had labored breathing an hour after being administered two lethal injections of the sedative pentobarbital, according to a transcript and audio recording of the calls.

“We’ve been carrying out an execution tonight. We’ve administered 10 grams of pentobarbital. The person is not yet deceased. That started approximately 1 hour ago. And we’re calling for an ambulance,” an individual who called from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville said, according to a transcript of the first 911 call released by the Metro Nashville Emergency Communications Center.

The call came in at 8:40 p.m. CT on Sept. 30, according to the transcript.

When asked by the dispatcher if Pike was breathing normally, the caller said, “No. The breathing is very labored and slow,” according to the transcript.

Asked if there was any chest pain, the caller said, “I don’t know. The person is not conscious,” according to the transcript.

One of Pike’s attorneys, Kelly Gleason with the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, also called 911 to report that Pike was “still alive and breathing, and needs immediate life-saving care,” according to audio of the call.

Pike was “not awake, and she was snoring,” Gleason said in the call.

The dispatcher said that they were working on getting Tennessee Highway Patrol to the prison.

Other calls from that night showed Metro Nashville Emergency Communications Center personnel working to confirm the incident, following the initial 911 call.

One woman from the center reached out to Tennessee Department of Correction Central Control around 9 p.m. CT, saying she was trying to verify the “failed execution.”

“We have responders that are standing by,” the woman said, according to audio of the call. “We’re just trying to verify.”

The person at Central Command responded that no one from their facility called.

At 9:08 p.m. CT, Pike’s attorney made her call to 911 requesting “immediate life-saving care,” according to the Metro Nashville Emergency Communications Center.

Three minutes later, an individual with the Metro Nashville Emergency Communications Center called Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatch requesting that a trooper respond so that EMS personnel at the scene could enter the prison. The caller reported that someone at the prison’s front gate told EMS “to come in because they need the ambulance and that this is an actual thing that’s happening, and not someone that’s like swatting,” but that EMS could not enter without an officer on scene.

The first 911 call was determined to be exempt from public release under Tennessee law, according to the Metro Nashville Emergency Communications Center, which said in a statement that it has “made a good-faith effort to provide additional information by preparing a written account of the initial call based on a review of the audio recording.”

Pike, the lone woman on Tennessee’s death row, was initially on a ventilator following the execution attempt before regaining consciousness nearly a week later, her attorneys said. She has since been released from the hospital and transferred back to prison, her attorneys said Saturday.

Pike was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

She is the first person reported to have survived lethal injection after being given medications, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, whose executive director referred to the failed attempt as “the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era.”

Pike’s attorneys raised concerns about her execution in the months leading up to it, arguing the medications used in the execution carried a huge risk of pain and suffering. They said she suffered burns on her arms from the pentobarbital and was having cognitive issues upon regaining consciousness following the botched execution.

Pike’s attorneys have called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Lee ordered a temporary halt to scheduled executions in the state following Pike’s botched execution and Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation earlier this month.

The governor’s office said it appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct an independent review of the Tennessee Department of Correction’s execution attempt that “will seek to determine whether the protocol was followed and consider whether additional recommendations are necessary to ensure the State’s protocol continues to be lawful and effective.”