Christa Pike became the first death row inmate to survive lethal injection Wednesday in what an expert dubbed a “singular and unparalleled” event.
Pike, 50, was strapped to a gurney in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution’s death chamber just before 7:30 p.m. CDT and given two doses of pentobarbital, which failed to have the intended effect of stopping her breathing and heartbeat.
Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robin Maher said seven other condemned inmates survived medical issues that arose from the execution team failing to find a vein, but revealed no one has lived after being administered the lethal drug cocktail.
Maher said what happened to Pike was “singular...
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