🇺🇸 Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike survives botched execution

Pike survived a botched execution attempt after receiving two separate lethal injections of pentobarbital.

She is alive, and is being treated in a hospital after her execution failed.

According to court reporters and journalists at the scene, the execution quickly went wrong. A first course couldn't kill her. Even a mandatory second set of syringes failed to stop her heart.

Witnesses said Pike complained of severe pain, gasped, coughed, gasped loudly and kicked hard enough to knock off her bed sheets.

Her lawyers filed an emergency motion to halt the execution, reporting that she had lost consciousness but still had a pulse and was snoring loudly.

She was rushed by ambulance from Riverbend Maximum Security Institute in Nashville to a nearby hospital. Her lawyers said the failure was expected, citing the state's record of difficult IV access, degraded drugs and no immediate emergency protocol.

Gov. Bill Lee has halted the remaining executions planned in Tennessee for the rest of the year. The Department of Corrections said it followed every step of the legal protocol.

The rules do not say what to do if a prisoner is still alive after using both sets of syringes.