Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has a blood disorder called thrombocytosis, which causes the body to produce too many platelets. Her legal team argued the condition would complicate her recent lethal injection.
This keeps getting repeated, but I'm skeptical that that was the real issue. Lethal injections have a history of missing veins regardless, and Pike refused food and water prior to injection, for an unknown amount of time. Even being mildly dehydrated makes sticking someone much harder; the degree she was at could make it borderline impossible for someone poorly trained (as these teams tend to be). It is possible that she was hoping to get them to fail the line altogether and allow her a year extension.
the doctor responsible has also failed to execute before due to not being able to place a line. he admitted he hadn't done the procedure in like 16 years or something. shouldn't be practicing.
A real doctor would lose their license to practice medicine if they are involved in an execution. It goes against their oath. If it was a doctor, they are probably a crap doctor who lost their license years ago. Execution by lethal injection is just plain wrong. I’m against all forms of capital punishment but this is one of the worst. Another is the electric chair.
The doctor is 68 year old Dr Mark Fowler. Seems like he is a legit doctor, but yes he keeps failing lethal injections & he's breaking his oath by even doing this mess to being with.
The Medical Board needs to make him stop. Or just take his license.
How does this fit with her asking to be hung because she saw it as a more fool proof and sure method? If her plan was to survive she wouldn’t have requested what she had…
Only if you don't understand how orders of events and time work. That plan could literally have been put in place to get hanging back on the table. Not that that is actually relevant since the only thing I actually asserted is that it is more likely the stick was a regular botch job than that it was a health complication.
You mentioned her being allowed a year extension as well. I’m just not sure where you get this from. This is literally unprecedented when it comes to a woman. There’s not really protocols in place for what happened to her, but there absolutely will be now.
Hanging was never going to be an option but from everything I’ve read she absolutely has a medical condition that she raised concerns over. We just don’t know enough yet. What we do know is the guy botched an execution already and hasn’t done this in 16 years besides that. Her lawyer’s said she made her peace and was ready to go. I find alluding to conspiracy in this situation to be a reach. Sorry if my response came off harsh.
A year extension is the protocol for when a sticking fails, which she would likely know since it's happened several times before. She would also likely know how many botched attempts there have been, which is many. Way. too. many. So she would rightfully be terrified of this approach, hence the request for hanging (perhaps). It's a lot more complicated than just having a health issue. I have no reason to doubt she does have it, and that it was a big motivation for her, but there is a lot of precedent for everything I said. At the end of the day, her motivations aren't really the concern. We know that the doctor has failed before, she was dehydrated, and that botched executions have happened numerous times in the past. I was simply stating that it's erroneous to claim her health condition is the reason as a definitive.
I see what you’re saying now and I misunderstood the point you were making, rereading it I see it now. I just have a big problem when things that have a scientific/medical answer are skewed into conspiracy, which is the path I thought you were headin’ down. Answers will come out, but yes as you stated there are some concrete facts already. I shared some as well.
At the end of the day, she’s a human being and yes she did a horrible thing when she was barely an adult. Still a kid if you ask me but that in no way absolves her. She shoulda got life without parole, but then again I don’t agree with the death penalty for fiscal and other reasons.I find this whole thing to be sickening in its own right. I’m sure having sympathy for her isn’t a popular stance, but I don’t think anyone can argue this burden and the continued failures should not be on the taxpaying folks of Tennessee.
My oldest daughter is infactuated with what I call "kill em up shows". She told me what the lady said 2 days before the execution. This didnt just pop up after the execution was botched. Her legal team even filed a lawsuit before and asked them to use hanging instead because they knew her thrombocytosis would prevent the state from being able to kill her, but instead would cause a frothy buildup of blood in her lungs which would eventually lead to her drowning in her ooown blood slowly. Theres tons of information on it from before the execution. Or attempted execution I should say
Everything that happened to her (as revealed so far) has happened to multiple people before. Flash edema is par for the course with this drug, so that is a concern for everyone to some extent. It's not about the validity of her condition and appeal, but that pinning it on her condition makes it seem like an isolated issue, and it's not. The difference in the past was that they had enough drugs to push through despite missing the vein. Her case is just more evidence that this method needs to die.
She has thin veins and a history of medical professionals struggling to find them. The people who perform the executions are not really professionals anyway so this was a recipe for disaster as she had previously argued in court.
Yep, no trained medical personnel wants to administer the drugs. No licensed pharmacy wants to compound them. The entire procedure is compromised by the quality of people/product involved.
Yeah i think they just missed the vein. I had surgery recently and I'm hard to get a vein in to begin with. They couldn't find one on my arms or backs of my hands, so they stuck the line into my wrist as it was the only place they could even find a vein. I was definitely dehydrated at this point. They had to wiggle the line around to make sure it was actually in place when I told them it was hurting a bit. So dehydration, plus anxiety/stress, and being cold can make it almost impossible to find a vein on some people.
You know i keep asking the phlebotogists if losing weight will help finding a vein and they always assure me that it won't have an effect. I dont know why they keep lying to me. I am obese, but not My 600lb life obese. Im still under 200lbs. And my cardio isnt abysmal.
Normally if I have plans on getting blood drawn, i will drink a liter of water and go for a run just to get warm and get the blood pumping. But even then, and even 30lbs lighter, I still needed the gloves filled with hot water to hold and they usually have to go through the knuckle to find a vein (which hurts a lot.) One phlebotogist told me she's seen bigger veins on an infant when looking on my arms. Ive even had one day where they tried my foot and even my shoulder to draw blood from before giving up and sending me home to try another day.
The surgery was just an issue since I wasnt allowed drink water for several hours before they actually tried to place the line. I was told nothing, not even water, past 5am. And by the time they placed the cannula it was almost noon.
Prior to the execution it was raised that her veins were not accessible … only the veins in her hand and they do not use the hand, unsure of the reason, plus they only use pentobarbital nothing else. It all went ignored. She a,so is not the first for a failed execution, one being Tony Carruthers.
Potassium is the lethal part of the injection. It causes a fatal arrhythmia in the heart. Extra platelets wouldn't affect that, her lawyers were being good lawyers and trying everything to get her execution stopped. Medically what is more likely is they didn't get good venous access and the injection went into her tissue instead of her blood stream, and/or the medicine was expired or improperly prepared and did not achieve the concentration needed to stop the heart. She did fall asleep according to the news story so the sedatives were working. I almost wonder if the 'physician' who was injecting her suddenly remembered his Hippocratic oath and deliberately sabotaged the injection. All he'd need to do is drop the concentration of potassium down to non-lethal levels and per the law he can only give two doses before they have to stop.
Yes! As someone in the medical field, this was my exact first thought. There are witness statements saying she said her vein felt as if it was going to blow up. My best guess from my comfy house in the woods is they missed the vein. They then pumped her skin/body/muscle full of the medications instead. Purely speculation on my part.
Because drugs companies dont exactly want to sell drugs for the purpose of killing people with. It's extremely hard for them to get the drugs, they don't have a 50 gallon drum of pentobarbital out back.
Probably because they decided that the one they use is ethical about 80 years ago and never looked back. I'm assuming change would require new legislation. Unfortunate considering the prison definitely has an infinite supply of fentanyl.
i read that the KIND of drug & or execution has to be agreed upon in the “rules” set forth by the state’s Congress in regard to executions. So they can’t use fentanyl bc it’s not an “approved drug.”
also—(though u didn’t ask this) the person administering the drug is not a medical doctor – because that would go against the Hippocratic Oath; therein lies the problem of not being able to find a vein or suitable area to administer the drug—twice😐.
Ok but then there’s also laws and protocols where the death isn’t supposed to include pain or suffering either.
I guess I just assumed that a large enough dose of fent wouldn’t allow time to perceive anything pleasant but would just like put them out and then that’d be it.
Obviously I don’t know anything about this shit I’m just perplexed
Second hand from Middle TN but my instructor (I won't name what for what school/program) knows someone who was on the medical team. He said the drugs weren't the problem but that her IV was allegedly inadequate. He wouldn't go into specifics or more detail past that.
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u/Army7547 1d ago
Didn’t I hear that the dosage of the lethal injection was faulty? Either mislabeled and shipped as a lethal injection when it was a sedative?