Christa Pike is up and walking for the first time since her botched execution last week.
Pike, 50, took her first steps around her hospital room on Tuesday, according to her attorney Stephen Ferrell, who spoke. The convicted murderer had been unconscious and in critical condition after surviving two lethal injections at the hands of the Tennessee Department of Corrections on Sept. 30. Her arms remain severely injured from the procedure, and she is unable to use them much.
“What’s been described to me is that physically there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she’s not able to use them very much,” Ferrell told the outlet.
“She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far,” he added.
While her body shows signs of recovery, her mind remains unstable. Ferrell described her mental state as “good and bad,” noting that she can follow conversation but loses focus quickly. She forgets where she is going and loses her train of thought with ease. Doctors have not yet determined whether she suffered permanent brain damage from the ordeal.
“Good that she is fairly with it, but she’s also somewhat foggy. She can lose her train of thought really easily and forgets where she’s going,” Ferrell said.
Her other attorney, Randall Spivey, painted a darker emotional picture after visiting her following a Wednesday court hearing. There, a judge ordered Tennessee officials to preserve syringes and other evidence from the failed execution.
“She is angry and confused about everything right now. She is very aware that the state tried to execute her,” Spivey told reporters.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist advising Pike’s legal team, said that she can communicate only in a “basic way” since waking. In her disorientation, she mistakenly believed it was still September.
The physical toll of the execution attempt was extraordinary by her lawyers’ account. Pike was administered two doses of pentobarbital using at least seven needles, one of which emerged from her arm bent at a 90-degree angle. Despite this damage, she remains handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed.
“Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” her legal team stated.
Pike was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years. Instead, she became the first prisoner ever to survive a lethal injection in the United States. The procedure took place at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville before she was rushed to the hospital.
In January 1995, when Pike was 18, she and her boyfriend tortured and killed 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in a jealous rage. The brutality of the murder led to her death sentence. She has spent nearly three decades in isolation awaiting execution.
Pike’s attorneys continue to monitor her condition as she remains in critical care, with her long-term prognosis still uncertain.