Death row inmate Christa Pike was released from a U.S. hospital on Saturday and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Tennessee, where she has been housed for more than 30 years, her attorneys said.
Pike, 50, was discharged following her hospitalization after a botched execution attempt on September 30. She received two doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital during the procedure but survived, making her the only known person in the United States to survive a lethal injection execution.
Attorneys Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, and Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason from the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender announced the discharge in a joint statement. They said Pike will continue receiving medical care at the prison facility.
Pike awoke "angry and confused" in the hospital this week, according to her legal team, who said on Wednesday that she faces a long recuperation ahead. Her attorneys previously expressed concern that she could be brain-dead following the failed execution.
Pike was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder. After the execution attempt on September 30, she was transported to a Nashville hospital in critical condition. Her legal team expressed gratitude to first responders and her medical team for their care during what they described as extraordinary circumstances.
The case has raised questions about what will occur next, including whether Tennessee will attempt another execution or whether her death sentence will be commuted.