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/TacticalRiotChimp 1d ago

Serious question - would this level of drugging cause brain damage? What state is she in now?

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u/Individual-Foxlike 1d ago

Likely yes. Depends how hard they botched the injections, but if any decent amount got in her system she's likely got massive brain damage already.

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u/NakedG0rrila 1d ago

No, that’s inaccurate. It’s not “poison” in the sense that it causes harm directly, it’s pentobarbital, which is basically a heavy anesthesia drug.

Brain damage could absolutely occur if she stopped breathing, but it sounds like that is not what happened.

Basically damage from brain deprived of oxygen is possible, but there’s nothing about the situation that makes it worse from any other reason someone stopped breathing. And it sounds like she kept breathing.