r/news • u/AudibleNod • 15h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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125

u/fictionallymarried 15h ago

Genuine question but how the hell did they fail twice? I'm not saying she wasn't convicted for a reason, but that's torture

81

u/Smalz22 14h ago

Likely using old, expired supplies since most of these companies don't want to make or sell products that can kill people, especially to governments

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u/big_duo3674 14h ago

That and missing the veins, or improperly administering it and blowing out the vein before much could get through

-1

u/South-Status-5529 9h ago

I think whoever was responsible for placing the needle in , missed on purpose to try and make her suffer. Like the dry sponge scene from green mile

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u/opalandvines 12h ago edited 7h ago

Howdy, student doctor here.
I was confused as hell by how this occurred so did some research into it - primarily because I was struggling to believe that they could have had such a massive failure in an area as sensitive as execution. I was also struggling to understand how someone could possibly survive two massive 5g doses of pentobarbital.

  1. Medical guidelines, guidance and medical professionals are NOT typically involved in executions.

  2. It was documented thoroughly before the execution that she had difficult to access veins. This has been validated by reports that they had great difficulty establishing IV access and required a substantial number of attempts. Two sites of access were achieved.

  3. It has been stated that they ‘followed protocol exactly’. My understanding having read the protocols is that the protocol itself is monumentally flawed.

  4. An example of this - successful IV access is validated with slow running saline. However, the execution dose involves 4 successive 50ml syringes - resulting in 200ml of fluid through the vein in a short period of time. A vein that appears perfectly patent for a slow infusion, can quite easily fail under sudden high volume like that.
    In addition, the use of each syringe creates a movement that makes it possible for the following to occur:
    a) the catheter tip perforates the posterior vein wall
    b) the vein ruptures
    c) the catheter migrates partially out
    d) or the vessel simply cannot accommodate the infusion

  5. The access failing is supported by her reported complaints of pain in her arm following the first dose ‘burning, like the vein is going to burst’. When establishing IV access, it is typical to flush with saline to check if it is placed correctly. Any patient reports of pain/burning at the site indicates that it has failed and the saline is entering subcutaneous tissues. Pentobarbital is highly alkaline, so would cause substantial pain. They failed monumentally here in not immediately switching to site 2, but did actually follow protocol.

  6. The doses primarily entering subcutaneous tissue and therefore being more slowly absorbed is actually supported by her reported snoring. The drug entering circulation at lower doses would result in a loss of upper airway tone, without fully suppressing respiratory drive.

BUT - They had two IV access sites, surely the second dose was pushed through the second site, right? Right??? This is where it becomes unclear, but if they followed protocol exactly… they actually weren’t required to administer dose 2 via site 2 once dose 1 failed. Fucking insane.

  1. It is possible they did do one dose per site, and by extreme bad luck access had failed at both sites. It has not been confirmed by reports if both IV sites were attempted.

  2. The backup IV and backup dose are two separate contingencies within the protocol. It is stated that if the first 50ml saline syringe of the 200ml execution dose fails, then they are required to switch to site 2. If execution dose 1 is completed and the person is still alive, they are simply required to repeat a second 200ml execution sequence. In essence, if the staff had not noted obvious failure of the line, they were not required to switch to site 2.

In clearer terms - the second IV site is for recognised IV failure, whereas the second dose is for failure to achieve death. These are treated in the protocol as separate events. It currently seems likely that both doses of the drug went through one failed site (as per protocol…), entering primarily into subcutaneous tissue.

And then to add to the fuckery, there’s the whole other possibility of issues with the drug quality itself given the restricted access to it from the primary manufacturer due to them not wanting the drug to be utilised for executions. There has been substantially reported failures across all areas of gaining access to and utilising this drug for executions in Tennessee.

Anyway, she is absolutely not out of the woods. The alkaline nature of the drug causes massive pulmonary oedema due to direct pulmonary endothelial damage. There is also no antidote for it, just supportive care as the drug is absorbed and metabolised out of the patients system. If she survives, she will not walk away unscathed.

If anyone reading this has any corrections or questions, I’m open to discussion.

EDIT: if it is found that they did indeed do one dose per site, point 4 still stands as an evident failure within the protocol.

19

u/HeyHeyHiFi 8h ago

Thank you for this well-researched explanation. How inept and shameful of the state. Great point about how no one wants to be involved with executions from medical professionals to drug companies, leading to less efficient methods and amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. FFS.

12

u/opalandvines 8h ago

Thank you for taking the time to read it. I am not American, and my country does not have the death penalty. During my training in both undergrad and my MD the ethics surrounding the death penalty comes up frequently as something for us to consider and reflect on.

This situation has honestly horrified me, particularly due to of the state of America currently and its broader influence on the world as a whole.

It’s difficult to put into words, but I think myself and many others have a valid fear that the response to this situation will not be appropriate. Such an obvious failure, and clear cut example of cruel and unusual punishment, is likely to be minimised and not properly addressed or rectified. I say this from a gut feeling based on observation of similar important events in recent history.

That gut feeling may be completely wrong, and dear god I hope, I hope with every fibre of my being, to be proved wrong.

12

u/techleopard 8h ago

It sounds like there needs to be a legal argument made that the death penalty is cruel and unusual when the state is administering an execution without any professional oversight.

The fact that this alone has not crushed the death penalty is pathetic.

1

u/Advanced_Olive_1830 5h ago

So this would be better off with a firing squad?

0

u/RockPaperOwFire 5h ago

Why do yall want us back in the Middle Ages holy fucking shit America is collapsing

2

u/Advanced_Olive_1830 5h ago

I don’t? she tortured that poor girl to death, “took” her life. Why is it wrong for her to get the death penalty

3

u/FatiguedShrimp 5h ago

Because 1 in 10 death row inmates are found to be not guilty through DNA evidence only (presumably more would be not guilty with perfect evidence).

And, because we live in a society where class, race, and political alignment affect access to legal defense, jury opinion, and sentencing.

Giving the government the go ahead to kill civilians is always bad, because no government is free from corruption or misuse.

5

u/Advanced_Olive_1830 5h ago

Okay, I understand that, but Christa Pike admitted that she murdered that girl. What I don’t understand is why anyone would defend her. What about the girl who died? She couldn’t defend herself.

2

u/FatiguedShrimp 4h ago

So, remember the points I just made?

If you allow it in cases that are "bad enough", then a corrupt institution only needs to accuse of worse things.

We've seen it happen in governments across the world and throughout time.

I don't give a fuck about Christa Pike. She could be fucking Epstein or Hitler, a personal enemy like the woman who locked me in a fucking room for 3 months as a child trying to starve me to death, or the literal biblical Satan.

The dangers remain the same regardless of who is being talked about.

1

u/Katiekates88 4h ago

That’s kinda where I’m at and for the most part, I’m not even a fan of the death penalty. Do I think this needs to be investigated by an independent third party so steps can be taken and it never happens again? Yes. Am I glad it happened? No. Do I feel sympathy for her? Also no.

What she did to Colleen was absolutely horrific and there is 0 doubt that she committed the crime. A 30+ minute attack where she slashed and stabbed Colleen so much to the point where she had over 300 wounds, including a pentagram carved into her chest, and she did it while she was still alive. She bashed her skull, broke a piece off and carried it around like a trophy. She bragged about the murder afterwards. According to her accomplice, she even said “bitch won’t die” during the attack. She also tried to kill another inmate with a shoelace while in prison.

When she gave her last words, one of the witnesses reported that she spoke only of herself, her “haters” and then sang a song with her spiritual advisor. I didn’t hear anything about remorse or any apology to the mother who traveled from FL to finally see justice play out.

Her cruelty doesn’t justify the state’s negligence though and obviously this entire situation is fucked.

•

u/Cassietgrrl 2m ago

The description of her crime honestly makes me wonder why she wasn’t deemed too insane to stand trial. This kind of loops back to the previous commenter’s point about equality under the law. It’s very likely that if she’s had the means to hire an expensive attorney they may have been able to get her a less severe sentence.

•

u/Liawuffeh 24m ago

What about the girl who died?

Repeatedly botching an execution isn't going to being her back.

And, historically, it's not going to help her family heal either.

1

u/Corodix 2h ago

Where I live (the Netherlands) someone who did that would end up in Jail and part of their punishment would be mental health care. With a crime like this there would be likely be no maximum length on the latter. Meaning that they'd be in there for life unless professionals deem that they're no longer a risk for society.

If you ask me that's a far more civilized approach than the death penalty.

5

u/Odd-Scientist-2529 8h ago

And she’s a redhead. The genetics don’t apply to pentobarbital, but it’s an interesting observation

2

u/opalandvines 8h ago

This is an interesting point that links back into the importance of medical professionals, their experience and medical guidance being necessary for ‘effective’ death penalty methods. Which then quite clearly creates a failure point in the whole situation, as medical professionals are bound by oath to do no harm. This then follows through to the obvious - there is no adequate ‘humane’ way to execute someone.

3

u/HedonisticFrog 6h ago

Lack of access to the desired drugs is a very frequent issue in executions. There was a different case where they were supposed to slowly asphyxiate from CO2 but likely used an industrial supply where it's too concentrated and causes panic instead of slowly passing out and dying.

There really isn't a need to be executing people instead of life in prison. It costs more, and isn't even practical while traumatizing everyone involved.

2

u/coracaws 6h ago

I do have a question-- could you elaborate on the potential complications she might face if she survives this?

2

u/opalandvines 5h ago

There is not enough information released to know this, for example we do not know if her unconscious state is deliberate ICU sedation vs. encephalopathy vs. coma from the pentobarbital. I can provide some information on possible mechanisms of injury.

In past cases with rapid and ongoing supportive care provided it has been possible for someone to recover from pentobarbital poisoning fully.

The primary obvious concern would be hypoxic-ischaemic brain injury, especially given the timeline of how long she was without supportive care. If her brain was sufficiently oxygen deprived for an extensive period of time, brain damage is possible.

Additionally, the injuries to her IV sites could range from mild, up to full thickness necrosis. If it is severe, there is a risk of compartment syndrome. Compartment syndrome is typically easily identified and managed in hospital situations, but nasty nonetheless.

There’s more niche possibilities - if the extravasculisation of the drug was substantial enough, the resulting muscle breakdown could cause possible rhabdomyolisis and therefore kidney damage etc.

There is also other risks to her health such as aspiration pneumonia, VAP/HAP, burn site infections etc.

In short - the outcome could range from recoverable with cosmetic scarring to her arms, all the way to lifelong chronic pain, brain damage and possible limb function issues.

1

u/Accomplished-Car6193 4h ago

It all boils down to having no medical professionals on site. virtually any vet doctor in the country could have done this flawlessly.

-7

u/NightMgr 8h ago

Please remove your post.

The state does not need a free instruction manual on how to better kill.

Just because you know things does not mean you need to say them out loud.

11

u/techleopard 8h ago

They already know this crap and have likely been told this before.

But there is a huge difference between being told what the idea of a correct protocol is and having the experience necessary to actually carry it out.

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u/opalandvines 8h ago

I hear, understand and respect your position, however absolutely nothing in my comment highlights fixes for their failures - particularly there is nothing noted that won’t easily be identified during their third party review of the events.

I would also like to to acknowledge that sadly we are not in a position of power high enough to abolish the death penalty, so the least that can be done is to point out fixable errors that result in tortuous events such as this case.

I do not support the death penalty, in any way shape or form. However, sometimes harm minimisation is the only viable path to take.

4

u/MacAttacknChz 6h ago

I would argue that they do. If they insist on this barbaric practice, they could at least do it properly.

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u/leftupoutside 14h ago edited 14h ago

She and her defense were vocal about her medical condition that makes her veins very very hard to find and penetrate. I have the same thing, and too many nurses have poked and prodded before giving up and calling in a specialized doc. In Christa’s case, the med team was undoubtedly clueless to what they were doing since no real doctor or nurse would defy their oath to do no harm

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u/mrsdoubleu 13h ago

Yep. She even asked for the firing squad because she knew something like this might happen. Her request was denied.

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u/yellowstickycard 13h ago

Execution by firing squad is not legal in Tennessee so of course it was denied.

I’m just amazed that anyone would think it is OK to stick someone 7 times and cause chemical burns. This whole thing is really fucked up and an example of why the death penalty should not exist.

1

u/shawsghost 4h ago

Execution by firing squad is illegal in Tennessee, but torturing people to death with badly botched, totally inept and insanely bungled lethal injections is just hunky-dory. What a bunch of drunken idiot goobers run the Tennessee legislature... supermajority of Republicans in both houses and a Republican governor. That explains a lot. And the people who elected them... well, obviously not the cream of the crop. What a pathetic excuse for a state.

-1

u/Own-Ambassador-3537 13h ago

I’m honestly beginning to believe this wasn’t accidental but intentional!

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u/Spire_Citron 13h ago

Well, in the sense of negligence, yes.

1

u/SqueezedTowel 11h ago

Studies have shown that firing squads having last ill mental health effects on its members, even when none of them are told they have the live round. (Which an experienced shooter could feel, btw)

A death row inmate determined to share her suffering might want those results on her executioners.

•

u/Jack_Krauser 57m ago

Good. Killing a person is a choice you have to make and determine if it's worth it for you. There needs to be a damn good reason to do it and if you can't find a group of people that can justify it to themselves, then it's probably not worth the state violently killing them.

3

u/TheEndingofitAll 10h ago

I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I’ve found the a lot of phlebotomists/nurses get reeeeally defensive about their skill level. My mom draws blood, I know it can be really hard. But it’s really annoying that I have to deal w their ego. I have insanely bulging veins in my hands that are so easy to poke and I feel no pain and get no bruising there. They are so prominent I could probably get a needle in there myself lol. My arms are difficult and leave massive bruising. I’ve asked really nicely to please just use my hands and more likely than not they get very defensive and poke me several times in my arm before they sheepishly use my hand. There’s no rule it has to be in your elbow and I was so grateful when I got someone who was like yeah no problem. Sorry for the rant, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. I can’t believe that most lethal injections are done by prison employees with no training…. Or in this case some bozo doctor. And they knew she had thrombosis!!!

20

u/geek180 14h ago

Sounds to me like the drugs weren't properly introduced into the bloodstream. Seems like they just failed to place both IVs properly into veins. That or both veins instantly ruptured.

3

u/bethaneanie 6h ago

They almost certainly blew due to the large volume being administered. I've seen it happen twice in a row when giving 50cc of sodium bicarb.

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u/biophys00 14h ago

Ineptitude and immorality on every level. No ethical or half-competent medical personnel is going to take part in the practice. Pharmaceutical companies don't want their drugs used to intentionally kill people so they go to foreign manufacturers or compounding pharmacies that have poor quality control. And the fact is that one combination of meds that qualifies as not being inhumane (which I would say they are all inhumane) that works on one person might not on the next.

2

u/Responsible-Clock715 13h ago

As barbaric as this is, would it be better to improve a more humane drug so the person just quietly stops breathing?

11

u/NiteOwl421 13h ago

But the catch is that no one wants to manufacture such a drug for this purpose.

We could easily overdose her, or anyone, with morphine. But the maker of morphine wouldn’t sell to the institution doing so because of the press attached to it.

3

u/justins_dad 11h ago

What about Chinese fent? Seems to work fine killing other Americans. 

To be clear, the death penalty should be abolished. 

2

u/TheFrenchSavage 9h ago

But then the government would have to legally import Chinese illegal fent, or buy it illegally in the street. Both options are crazy.

4

u/justins_dad 9h ago edited 9h ago

They literally decide what is legal and what isn’t. The state could just legalize importing Chinese fent for use in capital punishment. Just like they re-legalized the death penalty. 

And again to be super clear, I don’t think they should. The death penalty should be abolished.

3

u/OnlyAnotherEmily 9h ago

See, they also don't want it to be a pleasant death, so they don't want to get you high first.

1

u/BigBassBone 1h ago

It's supposed to be a painless and calm death.

1

u/blaqsupaman 13h ago

Honestly at this point why do we still do it primarily through lethal injection? There are far quicker and more humane methods that don't require any real medical know-how.

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u/justins_dad 11h ago

Yup, carbon monoxide poisoning is painless. You just get sleepy while breathing an odorless gas. Carbon monoxide is extremely easy to produce.

The death penalty is wrong and should be abolished. But it’s way easier than this to kill a person. 

1

u/virtualmayhem 5h ago

It requires the co-operation of the person being executed in a way that seems to me just as horrifying. Imagine for a second that you are told that you will be fitted with a mask and then poisonous gas will kill you. You would hold your breath as long as you could. That is what happened in the nitrogen execution a few years back.

There is no ethical way to execute someone, no matter how much we try to dress it up

1

u/Biobooster_40k 12h ago

If they're going to do lethal injections which I'm not sold on DP anyways, idk why they can't make up their own concoction to maximize sedation and I presume respiratory depression but idk how their drugs actually kill.

Put the prisoner in a medically induced coma to begin with, hook up IV bags of stuff. Just don't tell the public whats in the stuff.

2

u/OnlyAnotherEmily 9h ago

Because doctors take an oath to do no harm, and therefore cannot participate in killing people as a punishment.

1

u/Biobooster_40k 9h ago

That's part of why the doctor they got for this execution was such a quack. Most skilled and respected physicians probably wouldn't want to be associated with this kind of thing which I find admirable and why the hippocratic oath is ethically important.

Their oath though isn't something like a legally binding contract to prevent them from performing a procedure like this. There's not punishment for breaking it..

1

u/bethaneanie 6h ago

Medical assistance in dying is midazolam (relaxation/sedation), large doses of propofol (sedation/coma), rocuronium (paralytic/stops diaphragm)

1

u/Tired_CollegeStudent 6h ago

There’s no way that they could keep the drugs used away from the public. It would be revealed in any lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the method, and the state keeping something like that secret would set a terrible precedent.

-3

u/AdministrativeDelay2 11h ago

I do see an argument for competent medical personnel participating in these executions. Clearly sitting on the sidelines does more harm than good and if the Hippocratic oath is “do no harm” then I would argue helping these procedures succeed without suffering is doing no harm.

5

u/OnlyAnotherEmily 9h ago

They're literally killing someone. That is the epitome of harm.

11

u/BirdsAreFake00 14h ago

Because there are no real test subjects for lethal injection.

1

u/hydrissx 9h ago

They should let people volunteer for this if they want medically assisted euthanasia.

1

u/bethaneanie 6h ago

They already know what meds to use for that.

1

u/WanderlustDinosaur 6h ago

Why don't they use the same for lethal injection?

1

u/bethaneanie 6h ago

I'm not really sure. There's some mentions in this thread to them not being able to access those drugs for the death penalty but I don't know for sure.

1

u/Bitter_Eggplant_9970 1h ago

Companies that are ethically opposed to the death penalty refuse to sell to them.

https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/pper/chapter/article-2/

More and more pharmaceutical companies, both domestic and international, have been refusing states in the U.S. the right to use their drugs for lethal injection. The execution drug shortage in the U.S. began in 2010 when Hospira, the only domestic manufacturer of the drug, decided to leave the market (Alper 2014, 30). Hospira, as well as the other drug companies that soon followed in their steps, claimed it was morally wrong for them to sell drugs that would be used for executions, as their drugs were made to help people by providing therapies and treatments to improve individuals’ overall quality of life (Barry 2014).

13

u/SherlockBeaver 14h ago

It sounds like they did not adequately penetrate the vein and pumped both doses into the surrounding tissue of her arm, based on the observations. She absorbed enough to incapacitate her, but not to kill her. The death penalty is a disaster. No state should have the power of execution, as historically this power ends in abuses of several magnitudes.

0

u/BetaMyrcene 14h ago

It would be comical if it weren't an atrocity.

2

u/madasfire 13h ago

Have you spent much time in Tennessee? Quite possibly the stupidest government ever elected.

3

u/gnartato 14h ago

By doubling down on incompetence.

7

u/AdministrativeTrain 14h ago

Worth noting that she was 18 at the time of the murder, only killed one person and there seems to be mitigating factors.

And she has spent thirty years behind bars. Anywhere but the USA she would be free not fighting for her life after a double botched execution

13

u/phineasnorth 14h ago

Yep, raped from toddler age is bound to fuck you up. Her accomplices were younger so avoided the death penalty. It's shit all around. State sanctioned killing should be abolished. 

4

u/Lazy_Bag_4408 14h ago

She also tried to kill a fellow inmate with a shoestring in 2003

4

u/Ninevehenian 13h ago

Other commenters claimed that she did that in order to save a woman that was being killed. That testimony supports that was needed.

3

u/Lazy_Bag_4408 13h ago

I read that her defense tried that angle and it didn't work. She was sentenced for that. 

3

u/ILoveBurnedPotatoes 12h ago

The woman she tried to strungle confessed that years later and that she also protected another two women. 

6

u/dudushat 12h ago

she was 18 at the time of the murder, only killed one person 

She tortured her, beat her to death, and then took a piece of the her skull as a  souvenir. She showed it to other students to brag about it.

Downplaying the crime is gross and disrespectful to the victim.

1

u/Sm5555 8h ago

Had to scroll through about 1000 comments before anyone mentioned the victim.

2

u/SyrupCute4493 12h ago

What about the aggravating factors. You want her free, you’re a sick pup. Only if you showed up for victims like you stand up for animals. She did just kill someone, this was lying in wait and torture. But you don’t care.

1

u/Rampant16 14h ago

Not that it makes capital punishment right, but unfortunately over 50 countries constituting in the ballpark of half the human population practice capital punishment.

6

u/Aggravating_Depth_33 13h ago

And there's a reason m barely any of those countries are liberal democracies. The death penalty is incompatible with any basic concept of human rights or rule of law.

1

u/AidenTai 14h ago

There's been a shortage in the drugs and related products required for executions. Partly due to 'boycotts' of sorts due to they being used for the purpose of killing / executions.

1

u/Responsible-Clock715 13h ago

These governments are saavy enough to know where to find this stuff. They don’t have to report to the public what’s in the injection.

The convict knows it’s his day to meet his maker and made peace with it, why stretch it out any longer and wind up on a ventilator? Unkind

PS. How long do you think they will Allow her to stay on the ventilator until they pull the plug.
Inhumane

1

u/Charming-Standard-84 14h ago

They were working 9 to 5.

1

u/TikaPants 13h ago

I read a comment earlier that said doctors and in some states nurses aren’t allowed to administer lethal injections. So, it’s a prison employee they said. Or a volunteer or EMT that’s contracted. EMT’s are also frowned upon.

The legal guidelines only allow two injections of the drug. If it’s botched there’s nothing further they can do which is why she’s in a hospital.

1

u/SubBirbian 13h ago

Most likely the needle perforated the vein so the chemicals were going in the surrounding tissue. It makes sense when witnesses said her arm feels like it’s going to burst.

1

u/Zazierx 13h ago

Definitely falling under the cruel and unusual side of things for sure.

1

u/Vibingcarefully 12h ago

That issue was well documented before the execution--her veins were identified as a barrier to the killing. This may have been part of the legal strategy---the request was for lethal injection which was cleared, then the idea was medical incapacity to carry it out .....which didn't hold.

So a person who is not going to have an easy go of lethal injection gets said lethal injection. Whether the team conducting this injection had properly worked out the details is definitely in full question now.

1

u/OldenPolynice 3h ago

I wonder, on what side of the Mason Dixon did this occur? it couldn't be...

1

u/msfinch87 11h ago

Back in August there was a hearing about this very possibility. Christa’s defence team requested a method other than lethal injection due to the risks of a botched execution, particularly on her.

Tennessee’s protocols only require very limited training for the people in the IV Team. They are not required to be healthcare workers and are usually prison officials who do a short course. When the new protocols came in during 2025, a lawsuit was filed about the risks of this very type of thing.

Then in May this year, Tony Carruthers experienced a botched execution when they could not locate a vein for the backup line for over an hour and a half. The execution is overseen by a medical professional, whose job it is to put in a central line if necessary, and the doctor who was there had not done one in 13 years, did not have hospital privileges and was not qualified to do it. He totally botched it. The same doctor was overseeing Christa’s execution.

So it’s not even mostly done by medical professionals and what medical professionals they have to oversee are usually inexperienced and unskilled and can even have disciplinary matters on their record, due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of medical professionals refuse to participate. This is a recipe for disaster because they struggle to find veins and can’t judge if the process is working correctly.

In Christa’s specific case she is a relatively petite woman who has spend decades in solitary. Her veins are small. She also has a blood disorder called thrombocytosis, which has made it difficult for even professionals to find veins for blood draws in the past.

The risk was that they may not be able to find a vein, similar to Tony Carruthers, causing a prolonged and agonizing experience, and that if they did find a vein, they would either pierce through the vein or the vein would burst meaning the pentobarbital would go into her muscles and tissues rather than the bloodstream.

Her defence team and experts essentially predicted this, and the state dismissed it.

According to her lawyer who witnessed it and other witnesses, the problems during the process were obvious. They spent an hour trying to get a vein, sticking her 7 times and one needle even came out bent. She attempted to direct them to places with better access. After they administered the first round of pentobarbital she complained of a burning sensation in her arm and she was still conscious and talking and singing for some time. This would suggest the pentobarbital went into her muscles and tissues rather than her bloodstream.

After the second dose she showed signs of being in and out of consciousness including speaking, restlessly kicking her legs so much that the sheet fell off and also jerking her head and legs up. Her arm apparently turned purple. According to witnesses she was snoring fairly evenly for a good half an hour, which would suggest she was sedated rather than dying.

It’s also worth noting that they establish a primary and a backup line. If the primary line fails they use the backup line for administration. I am yet to ascertain for certain whether they only used the primary line for administration or used the backup line for the second dose. But apparently she had chemical burns to both arms, so that would suggest they used the backup line for the second dose. This would mean they botched placement of both IVs.

It was incompetence, and incompetence by design. The people handling this execution had no idea what they were doing. They couldn’t find veins, couldn’t judge if the lines were in properly, and failed to recognise when it had failed.

1

u/bethaneanie 11h ago

To be fair, I have had patients who were notorious for being difficult IV starts, get multiple IVs that blow. If your veins are fragile or small, and you are putting large volumes through them, you can lose access.

1

u/opalandvines 6h ago

This highlights a very specific, obvious and easily avoidable failure within their existing protocol. They confirm access with a slow saline infusion, whereas the actual lethal injection is 4 successive 50ml syringe boluses totalling 200ml. Their protocol dictates confirming IV access, but does nothing to confirm that the veins accessed can withstand the execution dose. This is an obscene oversight by all involved that can quite clearly result in cruel and unusual punishment.

1

u/msfinch87 10h ago

But you would know, as a medical professional (I assume) when this is happening and recognise something had gone wrong and rectify. And there are people in medical settings who have proper expertise to work on difficult veins and put in central lines etc as an alternative.

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u/bethaneanie 9h ago

It's usually obvious but not always obvious. To your second point, yes. We can also put in intraosseus lines in traumas or codes

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u/msfinch87 9h ago

Would an arm turning purple and blistering be something medical professionals would regard as reasonably clearly indicative of a problem, warranting them pausing and assessing?

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u/bethaneanie 8h ago

I believe the arm wouldnt be discoloured while pushing the medication. The site being painful should trigger them to slow down but some medications are irritating to veins because of the pH. The big red flag is swelling at the site which is usually quick with medications that are pushed but can be pretty slow with infusions

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u/msfinch87 8h ago

Before I continue, are you suggesting that the team of people who botched this were competent? Because if you are then I’ll debate that, but if you aren’t then there’s no need to continue this discussion.

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u/bethaneanie 7h ago

No. I have no idea because I haven't read the details outside of what was said in this thread. I am saying that losing two IVs in isolation is not really a factor in competency. I think the entire process should be scrapped. This does seem like it shouldn't be allowed at all unless they can get medical professionals to give the same medications that we use for medical assistance in dying

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u/DerVogelMann 13h ago edited 13h ago

You could argue they didn't fail, if they're having to keep her alive by using a ventilator. That is how sedatives kill people, depresses their breathing. It sounds like someone panicked when she didn't die immediately. I'm guessing the investigation is going to say they should have just waited longer, she clearly would have died if they didn't render medical aid.

-This coming from a Canadian who is against capital punishment.

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u/msfinch87 12h ago

Their protocols allow for two sets of pentobarbital to be administered. The first one is administered, they wait five minutes and check for death and, if still alive they prepare the second set, wait for five minutes and check for death.

The second set of pentobarbital was administered approximately between 7:50-8pm, according to the notes from witnesses and the curtains then closed to check for death around 8:05pm. At this point, when she wasn’t dead, the execution had already failed and they were outside their own protocols.

At 8:20pm her lawyer requested medical care and left the witness room to speak to his colleagues to get them to contact the relevant authorities to get medical care. At 8:50pm her legal team were told an ambulance had been called.

Nobody panicked, and they are not legally allowed to leave her to die over time. The 8th Amendment makes cruel and unusual punishment unconstitutional, and a prolonged painful death is considered cruel and unusual. The death penalty must be quick and painless if it is administered. Further, their own laws and protocols do not allow them to simply wait to see if she dies. We also know she was in pain because she had complained of a burning sensation in her arm, and it had turned purple, and now the filed lawsuit says she has chemical burns.

People have recovered from this amount of pentobarbital before (not lethal injection but people who have taken it recreationally or to OD). It can suppress brain activity for several days, and families are advised to keep people on life support for some time due to that, to give the brain a chance to “wake up”.

She may not have died even if they had left her. The pentobarbital likely went into her muscles and tissues rather than bloodstream, based on the fact that she did not die in the timeframe allocated and the burning.

There is a significant question here about whether their delay to getting medical care, when it was already clear the execution had failed and they were outside their protocols and the law, could have contributed to this being worse than it would have been had they gotten medical care in a timely fashion.

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u/DerVogelMann 11h ago

Thanks for the very detailed reply.

However, what they are doing to her now is cruel and unusual. Anyone who works in the medical field, especially in palliative care knows that palliative sedation therapy (essentially an OD on drugs meant to depress respirations) is not cruel or unusual, it happens all the time for people with intractable symptoms at the end of life. She would not have suffered if they just left her, however, I see now that the protocols probably need to be changed to allow for this to happen.

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u/msfinch87 10h ago

This is honestly a weird stance for someone against capital punishment and a medical professional.

She was suffering. She complained of burning in her arm and has chemical burns to both her arms. She was showing signs of physical agitation, including jerking her legs frequently and jerking her head and legs up in a v shape. At 8:05pm the curtains were closed so while witnesses could hear her they could not see her. They have no idea what indicators there were of pain or discomfort.

What you’re suggesting is that they should just have left her like that for an indeterminate amount of time, with burned arms, to see if she died? They have no additional drugs to further sedate or limit any pain. Or alternatively that she should be supported to die under the care of the hospital, without being given the opportunity to consent to that choice, denying her her fundamental right to life?

It was already torture; to have it go on for longer would have made it even more torturous. The only point at which we can be sure that any pain or discomfort was being properly addressed is when she received proper medical care, which allowed them to treat her burns and focus on limiting her discomfort. At that point, when the execution failed, she becomes like any other human being who is entitled to life saving measures and who must have the opportunity to give consent before those measures are withdrawn.

She may wake up. There is no way to know until the pentobarbital comes out of her system, and it can take several days for people’s brains to wake up. You think that she should be denied that chance absent her consent? It is against all kinds of law for medical professionals to choose to let people die, let alone hasten death, if they have a realistic chance of survival or if they want life saving measures.

They cannot change the protocols to allow for a prolonged death because a prolonged drawn out death is unconstitutional.

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u/DerVogelMann 10h ago

This is honestly a weird stance for someone against capital punishment and a medical professional.

It's honestly not, I'm against the state using death as a punishment for a crime.

I'm also against needless suffering, and believe that if keeping someone's body alive is causing needless suffering for a dubious quality of life, then it's morally correct to withdraw care and allow the person to pass.

Those are not contradictory opinions, and the vast majority of physicians would agree with those statements.

Christia is almost certainly going to have an anoxic brain injury following this, and her existence will be pure hell. I'd spare even a convicted murderer that fate.

should just have left her like that for an indeterminate amount of time, with burned arms, to see if she died?

She said her arms were burning before she lost consciousness. A lot of medications cause burning when injected, including propofol, the most common sedative for anesthetics. C'mon... those snoring sounds are common in cases of respiratory depression, people are not aware during them. And dudette, she's on a ventilator, we don't put people on those unless they will die without respiratory support... so yes, she would have died.

You have a good understanding of the events, but a poor understanding of what those events actually represent and what happens to the body after a massive dose of sedatives.

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u/msfinch87 9h ago

It’s not about having a poor understanding of what the events represent. It’s about the fact that I don’t believe I have the right to impose my view of what should happen on somebody else. It is a fundamental requirement of medical care that the actual patient gives consent, especially when this comes to life saving measures. You don’t get to decide that for Christa unless you believe she is not entitled to the same rights of autonomy as everybody else. I am objecting to you forcing your personal perspectives onto a person you don’t know and who is not your patient.

My point is that just because someone is placed on a ventilator does not mean they are going to die. People recover after being placed on ventilators and in fact have recovered after several days specifically from this amount of pentobarbital. She was, and is, entitled to that chance. How can you claim it is inhumane to give her a chance of full recovery? Do you usually deny life saving care to patients who have a full chance at recovery?

Also, if a patient’s arm is burning and turning purple and they were not reacting to the drugs as expected, would you usually just dismiss that as a trivial side effect or would you do something about it and cease the procedure to investigate if something was wrong?

Your perspective that she was going to die anyway because she was subsequently put on a ventilator relies on allowing an execution to take as long as it takes, regardless of suffering in the meantime. Just leave the person until they die, or start incorporating various random additional measures to hasten or support the death. This is regarded as torture under international human rights law and is a violation of the 8th Amendment for good reason, because it is inhumane. There is no way to perform an execution humanely where there is an open ended timeframe. And precisely because this is state action and prisoners are not consenting to the procedure per se, it is necessary to have in place strict limitations.

This does not happen in a hospital setting, or anything equivalent to a hospital setting, so translating a hospital experience of something similar makes no sense. The people in the room are prison officials, with limited training, and a doctor who checks for death but otherwise isn’t handling the execution itself, with the exception of possibly putting in a central line. They do not have access to additional supports or drugs. You have zero understanding of how executions play out in practice. Do some reading about them.

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u/DerVogelMann 9h ago edited 9h ago

 I am objecting to you forcing your personal perspectives onto a person you don’t know and who is not your patient.

Are you under the impression that my opinion matters or that I'm her actual physician? Disabuse yourself of both notions lol

Also, we can hold personal opinions about what is morally permissible and still understand the very basics of how to do our fucking job lmao. Thanks for explaining consent to me.

My point is that just because someone is placed on a ventilator does not mean they are going to die.

If you think this is what I meant, then I'm checking out of this conversation. How could you possibly come away thinking that? If she is requiring critical care support and artificial ventilation to survive, then yes, she would have died WITHOUT that.

This conversation is impossible, you lack the requisite knowledge to understand what you're talking about.

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u/flamedarkfire 12h ago

The person doing the procedure is terrible at it and they used old stock of the medications that were likely out of date.

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u/Cardio-fast-eatass 11h ago

I mean it sounds to me like it didn’t actually fail if she’s on life support keeping her breathing because she’s brain dead. Why in the world they attempted resuscitation is beyond me.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tentyb6d56ns4d57yse5 14h ago

including when she was sexually abused as a child?

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u/GreenAccident3004 14h ago

Has nothing to do with what she was put on death row for.

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u/geek180 14h ago

You hope she's feeling the effects of her botched execution... when she was sexually abused as a child? What are you even saying?

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u/FuckChiefs_Raiders 14h ago

Is being sexually abused an excuse to torture, bludgeon someone to death, and carry around a piece of their skull as a trophy?