Christa Pike , who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection last month, is speaking out for the first time, saying she is recovering, “but healing is not the same as being okay.”
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak,” Pike said in a statement dictated to her attorneys. “And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike was hospitalized after she survived two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on Sept. 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer . At one point she was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. However, they said Pike woke up and began talking and walking with assistance.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
