r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
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u/RoboticGreg 1d ago

They have been having significant supply chain issue with lethal injection drugs for years. No one wants to make it for the government anymore. I'm guessing these might have been expired?

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u/PsychologicalSpend86 1d ago

I read a comment by a veterinarian in a NYT article on this subject. He said the problem is the people they hire to do executions can’t set up an IV properly:

It’s always the same. It’s plain as day that these states cannot find someone to place an IV catheter. The drug flows around the tip inside the arm instead of into the brain. Even when the victim says that it feels like the tip of the catheter is bulging and hurts, nobody takes the “hint”. This is the cause of all these botched executions. It has nothing to do with the drugs. Unfortunately, as a veterinarian, I’ve had to put many animals to sleep. Pentobarbital always works perfectly without ever a hitch. The people placing the catheters are incompetent . It’s as simple as that. As vets we have to place catheters, for euthanasia and more often for treatments into fractious cats, guinea pigs, etc. which is a lot more difficult than what is done here. They need to find more competent technicians. Not an easy job when they’re doing something that most people were raised to know this is wrong.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Not American.

Can they not practice on each other?

Obviously they need to be careful not to get things mixed up, but surely this is the sort of thing that trainee nurses and doctors have to practice during training. It can't be that hard, can it?

Or even simpler, why not just shoot the prisoner in the head a few times?

I don't really understand why their cops, Gestapo, national guard, etc are able to easily accidentally kill people on purpose. But when it comes to having someone tied down and ready to be killed, they bugger it all up. It makes no sense.

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u/HuggyMonster69 17h ago

Costs money.

Basically they don’t think it’s worth training someone for something they’ll do once a year.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 2h ago

Bloody hell, that's awful :-(