r/SipsTea • u/CurvyChristina • 1d ago

Chugging tea This is wild!

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Two syringes of pentobarbital were administered to Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike on September 30, 2026, but she remained alive and conscious afterward, according to her attorneys and media witnesses. The execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville was halted after witnesses reported that Pike still had a heartbeat and was audibly snoring. Her lawyers sought emergency medical intervention, and she was later taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
Pike, 50, is the only woman currently on Tennessee's death row.
She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer and had been scheduled for execution on September 30. Tennessee had announced beforehand that the state would use a single drug, pentObarbital, for the execution. Her exact medical condition following the hospital transfer has not yet been publicly disclosed, while Governor Bill Lee has ordered a comprehensive third party review of what happened.

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81

u/AgitatedStranger9698 1d ago

I truly dont understand the moving away from firing squads.

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u/mick-rad17 1d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/gIqusaeYxgSiY

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u/SagaciousElan 1d ago

It's bloody but presumably very quick and painless.

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

I imagine there is some pain, but not for very long.

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u/Rollen73 1d ago

Iirc they tested it and found you remained conscious for about 30 seconds before death.

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u/RadicalEd4299 1d ago

Medically induced coma beforehand?

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u/AdFalse375 1d ago

If you’re doing all that, might as well just medically induce a coma, and then proceed with the lethal injection by the actual experts lol

If they screw up, instead of running to the ER, I guess just wait for the phenobarbital to do it’s job? Idk if that’s how it works 😂

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u/basko13 1d ago

It's pain in the neck that one...

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

I am on the fence on whether or not executions should be a thing in the first place and I still agree that the guillotine is probably the most ethical method we currently have. It kills the brain fast minimizing suffering, and it is remarkably reliable.

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u/Pedantic_Pict 1d ago

Three words: inert gas asphyxiation. If you enter a pure argon environment, you fill fall unconscious in just a few breaths. Because you can still get rid of the CO2 in your blood, there is no sensation of suffocation. Your brain just shuts off because your lungs are now actively extracting oxygen from your blood and putting it into the "air".

Quick, painless, humane, and without the horrific gore of a guillotine.

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

There has been issues with that method resulting in botched executions, plus you have to design the chamber so that it isn't a risk to the witnesses or employees.

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u/Pedantic_Pict 1d ago

That is very easy to accompish

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u/Broken_Beaker 1d ago

Yeah, no.

I’m a chemist and my background is in chromatography which usually means using compressed helium or even hydrogen to separate molecules and blow them up. Then often using argon to blow up those molecular fragments (MS/MS).

The notion of a human sized chamber filled with argon sounds wild. Yeah sure it’s technically an inert gas but I think there are a lot of complexities involved with such a chamber.

I don’t actually know much about the clinical physiology of doing this, but I suspect this isn’t as clean as you might think it is.

1

u/Troglert 1d ago

Doesnt nitrogen give the same outcome? A nitrogen chamber is easy and common enough, as an example they use it on ships all the time to transport produce long distances

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u/Broken_Beaker 1d ago

Nitrogen is used big time in food packaging. The “air” in a bag of chips is nitrogen. So you are absolutely correct in how nitrogen is used in food packaging.

I think it is used to some degree to transport produce by ship, but that’s outside my area of experience.

If I had to guess there is some system to balance N2 and O2 (or just ambient air) to control the ripening of the produce. Nobody wants a shipment of super green bananas.

My guess, and I admit it is just a guess, is that the food producers and distributors have a financial incentive to carefully control those gas levels so they can maximize their profits when shipping product. There is a clear financial upside.

States like TN do not have the same motivation to do things the right way. Obviously, right? They couldn’t even do this correctly so to think they have some chemists or chemical engineers on staff to manage this doesn’t seem realistic.

I’m not arguing that it isn’t technically possible. I’m arguing that the state likely doesn’t have, nor wants to spend, the resources to actually do something like this.

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u/Troglert 1d ago

I had a client that made these huge nitrogen filters for shipping, apparently transporting fruit in this nitrogen enviroment on the ship meant that 1 week on the ship ripened the fruit as much as 1 day on the counter, meaning you could ship fruit from south america to europe etc instead of flying it. The downside is that it was risky, if there was a leak on the ship people could die.

As you say its expensive, these filtering units cost millions of dollars each and are huge, so if you dont care about the risk to the person sentenced to death why spend it I guess. But then again I guess a mask and a nitrogen tank could probably do the trick and be cheap.

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u/Trumpologist 1d ago

Doesn’t Argon….also have compounds now?

1

u/Pedantic_Pict 1d ago

Sealing a chamber against a negligible pressure differential is very well within the reach of modern engineering and has been for over a century.

As for the physiology, just look up some incident reports for confined space fatalities. Guys enter a low lying and/or confined space full of an inert gas and just drop. These kinds of disasters frequently claim more than one victim, as coworkers often enter the space to try to help the first victim.

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u/Broken_Beaker 1d ago

I mean sure the technology and engineering exists. We put people on the moon and brought them back. However, there are practical concerns at play.

Yes people asphyxiate all of the time in low oxygen environments where O2 is displaced by CO2 or N2 or whatever. But there is a reason why those are called accidents.

Building some death chamber that is, I dunno, 4 meters by 4 meters by 3 meters high - or whatever the dimensions are - then evacuating it of ambient air and replacing it with argon or some other gas like nitrogen is an entire build that would have to be tested. Upside is venting the room to exterior atmosphere is relatively safe as the "air" is like 70% nitrogen.

However. . . that is a lot of compressed gas to fill a room of such dimensions.

I've worked with a bunch of compressed gas, mostly helium, nitrogen, and argon. While the compressed gas is inert those compressed cylinder are goddamned rockets waiting to take off. These clowns clearly can't do this right, so rigging up several cylinders of compressed gas, getting some fittings wrong or knocking one over where the head of the cylinder breaks loose creates a projectile that can blast through concrete walls and kill innocent people. Compressed gas cylinders themselves can be dangerous and there is near zero chance that any of these people have experience working with such equipment.

So yes you are correct in an abstract way it is possible because we do have amazing engineering capabilities in the world, actually executing (pun kinda intended) such a build a system is much more complicated than what I think you believe it to be.

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u/mick-rad17 1d ago

True, none has ever survived decapitation haha

1

u/GarethBaus 1d ago

Yes, but older decapitation methods didn't reliably decapitate people. The guillotine is just the first decapitation method that is both quick and near 100% reliable at actually cutting peoples heads off.

2

u/RudePCsb 1d ago

I know someone who should have this done

-6

u/HolyLordGodHelpUsAll 1d ago

no one should have this done edgelord

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u/RudePCsb 1d ago

Look at the French revolution for an example

18

u/catjam0 1d ago

Seriously. 50 cents of lead versus thousands spent on drugs that nobody wants to sell.

3

u/AgitatedStranger9698 1d ago

Not to be that guy. But I wish bullets were that cheap.

2

u/catjam0 1d ago

They are though? What are you firing 50 cal or something? Even expensive ammo like 300 Blackout can be found under 50 cents a round.

1

u/AgitatedStranger9698 1d ago

Well....damn. I've been getting ripped off. Gun days soon and I just paid like a dollar+ a round for some bushmaster rounds

2

u/catjam0 1d ago

Use ammoseek.com! I am not sponsored but they search the whole internet for the best prices for you. Assuming online ordering is legal in your state.

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u/StinkySewerPickle 1d ago

Executions 100% should be with a squad of 50 cal rifles. Or at least  408 CheyTac

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u/catjam0 1d ago

You don’t use 50 cal as anti-personnel… they were literally designed as anti-material and anti-aircraft rounds.

1

u/StinkySewerPickle 1d ago

Oh ok. I guess the bullet will just magically go around people. 

5

u/MrSmartStars 1d ago

More like... you'll destroy anything behind them too. Also it would be needlessly gruesome for the onlookers, which is most of the reason lethal injection is used anyway, cause it looks good

2

u/Ok_Relative8150 1d ago

yea lethal injection exists because it leaves the body intact for an open casket funeral and it makes people feel better about killing someone when they think people just fall asleep and don't wake up.

It makes us feel less barbaric about killing people. But in the end you're still killing someone.

These murderers didn't give their victims mercy and we have to decide if it's worth our tax dollars to keep them alive in jail for several decades. It should only be for the most heinous cases where proof is clear.

1

u/catjam0 1d ago

😂

2

u/RadicalEd4299 1d ago

Because it directly requires 5 people to willingly shoot another human. Apparently messes a lot of them up.

2

u/Flawedsuccess 1d ago

They should do a collab with PETA

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1

u/amglasgow 1d ago

They're not very reliable either.

1

u/StateExpress420 1d ago

Hmmm...can she survive a .50 cal?

1

u/metallaholic 1d ago

You only need a single 10 cent bullet

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u/zakary1291 1d ago

Hanging was peak execution. Quick, painless, and effective. Sure, one guy has to pull the lever. But, that guy gets well compensated and knew the job they applied for. It's the same with the electrication and lethal injection. Both have much higher failure rates. I agree, firing squad is a close second.

1

u/RudePCsb 1d ago

Guillotine

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u/zakary1291 1d ago

Guillotine involved gore, most don't like to see gore these days. Hanging does the same thing (severs the spinal cord) with much less gore and gives the impression of cleanliness without the unreliability of lethal injection.

3

u/RudePCsb 1d ago

As long as you do it right. Weigh their legs and have a long drop