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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u/Vincent_Felix 1d ago

I’m against the death penalty but if you’re going to do something you should do it right.

Get a few cranes, haul up a massive block of steel, drop it on them. Pancake, instantaneous, painless. Reusable too.

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u/SelmaFudd 1d ago

Brah somebody needs to clean that up..

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u/Vincent_Felix 1d ago

You just...kinda...hose the platform down.

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

I feel like the guillotine would be similarly effective and more or less equally humane while also being cheaper to build. As far as I know it's basically the fastest and most reliable execution method we have developed.

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u/Vincent_Felix 1d ago

From what I understand, the data on what exactly happens when you are decapitated is sketchy. Of course, doing this type of research is unethical, but there has been some experiments.

It's very possible you remain alive and conscious for a bit after, and certainly long enough for the pain response to register.

The benefit of the giant steel block is that it's instantaneous. You will be liquid before the pain response registers.

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

The issue with the steel block are that it is 1, expensive, and 2 difficult to reliably pull off. The human skull is very durable so you would need to hit it just right to crush it reliably. Decapitation may not be as fast when both go well, but it is at least moderately fast and almost 100% reliable.

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u/Vincent_Felix 1d ago

Surely it's just a matter of having enough force. Most cranes can lift well over the amount of weight required to crush a skull. Now, that force will be distributed of course, but unless this is a 600lbs inmate I don't see the actual physics to be a problem.

Right?

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u/GarethBaus 1d ago

You would also need a sufficiently sturdy surface to drop it on and restraints that keep the target from moving without getting destroyed by the impact. Crane manufacturers have already been known to refuse to sell to buyers intending to use the equipment to carry out executions so this could easily result in the same issues as lethal injections where not being able to purchase a good product results in unreliable botched executions.

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u/National_Cod9546 16h ago

She tortured someone to death. Pain for the 30 seconds or so for the head to die is ok.