Christa Pike survived the lethal-injection drugs meant to kill her, then woke up days later and asked the people around her, “Where am I and who are you?”
Her attorney, Randy Spivey, described the question during an Oct. 7 news conference outside a courthouse in Tennessee. He hadn’t witnessed her waking up and said this was his understanding of what she’d said first.
“There’s still a lot of cognitive confusion,” Spivey said. He added that Pike has been trying to piece together what happened, asking about her legal team and about the victim’s family. “I think she is angry and confused about everything.”
Pike was administered two rounds of the drug pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Sept. 30 but did not die. Her lawyers say she’s the only known person in U.S. history to survive after lethal-injection drugs were given during an execution.
She spent several days on a ventilator. Spivey said that by Monday, Oct. 5, doctors believed she was brain dead and planned to remove life support the next day.
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, she woke up and began talking. Spivey said he has no explanation for what changed overnight.
Pike has been on death row since 1996 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She’s developed pneumonia and a blood clot in her arm; Spivey said she faces a lengthy recovery.
The Tennessee Department of Correction continues to hold her in custody. Her lawyers say she’s shackled to a hospital bed.
Gov. Bill Lee has suspended executions for the rest of 2026 while the state reviews its procedures. An assistant attorney general declined to say in court Wednesday whether the state would try to execute Pike again.