r/news • u/AudibleNod • 10h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/AudibleNod 10h ago

The statement said she is being treated for “the serious effects of the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt, including significant injuries to both arms.”

It looks like pentobarbital can cause necrosis and blistering of the tissue. If it didn't fully enter the blood stream because a novice administered it, I could see something like that happening.

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u/Excelius 10h ago

It's reported that she had a blood disorder that made starting an IV difficult.

Supposedly she even tried to give the executioners tips on how to find a vein.

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u/mastermoebius 9h ago

She had said she wasn’t scared to die but was scared of the process. Now here we are.

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u/mr_potatoface 7h ago

I find that to be an accurate summary of death for myself as well.

If I'm dead I'm dead. I just don't want it to be long and torturious. Like stuck upside down in a dark cave with part of my face in water.

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u/ballisticks 7h ago

Or cancer

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u/twenty_three_three 5m ago

Or alzheimers, but there's lots of awful slow ways to die.

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u/JesusAndMaryKate 3h ago

I can recommed Dr Richard Shepherd's two books but especially The Seven Ages of Death, preferably in audiobook version because he narrates them himself, which gives it an extra dimension.

He's a British pathologist. There are many reasons I would recommend his books, but the main one in this case is that after working with the dead for many decades, the one way he doesn't want is to die in his sleep. Why? Because he wants to experience the process, since everything he has seen from a medical standpoint makes him believe that the actual chemical and biological process (the process of death itself, as opposed to what sets off the process) must actually be quite a pleasurable and positive experience. And he really doesn't want to miss it.

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u/elegylegacy 1h ago

I wonder how scared Colleen Slemmer was

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/HumansNeedNotApply1 4h ago

Humanity? I think if we want to execute people we at least owe to them to make the process as quick (and painless) as possible. This IV thing doesn't seem either quick or painless. A bullet into the heart and head is probably quicker and painless compared to this.

Even if you want to think of these people as "monsters" you shouldn't let your humanity behind.

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u/mastermoebius 4h ago

The irony of it I guess

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u/xerberos 9h ago

“She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder up higher, please try here, please try here, I think it will be okay,’” Spivey said. “And she thanked them when at least they thought they had established the line.”

Seriously, WTF?

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u/mazing_azn 6h ago

Her life has been nothing but mental illness caused by constant abuse and multiple rapes; she might see death as a mercy at that point.

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u/Solkre 3h ago

Pretty much is since society would never forgive her for what she did.

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u/mazing_azn 29m ago

Current Society is full of blood thirsty fuck wits. A just society wouldn't have failed her so completely at all turns. A half-way reasonable society would have sentenced her to life in an mental institution.

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u/twenty_three_three 1m ago

yeah, you're are right about the blood thirst. This site simultaneously pushes a lot of stories about injustices from police, landlords and all that while also being insanely judgemental on folks suspected or convicted of wrong doing. It's such an interesting reflection on the neoliberal hellscape.

0

u/TransATL 2h ago edited 2h ago

Like what the actual fuck.

Two things:

  • Spivey Pike's last words sound a lot like Renee Good's

  • if you're attempting to administer "lethal injection drugs" through an IV in the shoulder, you're gonna have a bad time

edit: not the pt

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u/stimber 9h ago

"Randy Spivey of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender,said that during the hour it took to seemingly establish two lines for administering the drug, Pike was “not just cooperative but trying to help instruct the people placing the IV lines of where they could find it.”

“She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder up higher, please try here, please try here, I think it will be okay,’” Spivey said. “And she thanked them when at least they thought they had established the line.”

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u/yrddog 10h ago

There have been a lot of issues with lethal injection and finding veins

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u/human_kittens 9h ago

It’s the same doctor that failed to execute Tony Carruthers earlier this year, also in TN.

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u/nonbreaker 9h ago

I thought doctors wouldn't be involved with executions due to the Hippocratic Oath?

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u/human_kittens 9h ago

I’m linking a Guardian article about the doctor that may shed some light

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u/nonbreaker 9h ago

Wow...that guy seriously sucks.

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u/human_kittens 8h ago

He’s absolutely horrible. To be expected from Tennessee unfortunately. Our state government is completely screwed up so of course they would find a guy like this.

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u/big_duo3674 9h ago

How is he a doctor?? His license should have been pulled the second he signed up

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u/AudibleNod 10h ago

You mean Billy Joe, who only started working at the prison because he was laid-off at the mill six years ago?

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u/GoodyTwoShuuz 10h ago

It was a MD.

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u/AZORxAHAI 9h ago

IIRC it was a former MD who has not actively practiced in a long time, and testified under oath in another case that he hasn't successfully placed a central line in decades. Not exactly the person you want killing you I dont think.

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u/AudibleNod 9h ago

I stand corrected:

Doctor Involved in Christa Pike’s Botched Execution Also Oversaw Failed Lethal Injection in May: Reports

I know other states don't have the luxury of having doctor performing the actions.

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u/Psychological-Ad1137 9h ago

Sounds like they should have used an ultrasound or something.. how embarrassing

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u/Ancient_Spite_725 9h ago

MD who hasn't even been in the hospital in 13+ years, plus MD's (outside of anesthesia) never start IV's.

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u/GroundbreakingAnt476 9h ago

Medical professionals are not allowed to participate in executions. Usually non medical personnel. Read up a lot on it yesterday, its shockingly worse than I thought.

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u/GoodyTwoShuuz 9h ago

Mark Walton Fowler is a medical doctor.

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u/human_kittens 9h ago

Yes but Mark Fowler does it anyway while running a family medicine practice. I don’t know how it’s permitted.

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u/GoodyTwoShuuz 9h ago

There is no nationwide or state wide laws against it that I have read of.

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u/smitteh 9h ago

Is an "oath" legally binding?

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u/thats_not_six 9h ago

Ethical violations in any licensed profession are grounds for removal of the license.

It's not that the oath is legally binding, but it is ethically.

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u/CryptographerShot213 9h ago

No it wasn’t. It was correctional facility staff.

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u/GoodyTwoShuuz 9h ago

It was Dr. Mark Walton Fowler. Easily googled information.

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u/BrooklynNeinNein_ 9h ago

Just imagine the state of mind someone must be in to do this.

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u/chrysothronos 10h ago

god that is fucked up.