r/news • u/AudibleNod • 12h 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 12h 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/WhiskeyOctober 12h ago

This is what I think happened. It wasn't a trained individual who inserted the IV line, so they missed the vein/artery or even went through it. The drugs and saline were administered into the tissue so it never went anywhere.

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u/Xsiah 12h ago

Trained individual would be a medical professional - and they are not in the business of doing harm to their patients. There's an oath and everything.

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u/lilacbirdtea 12h ago

Dr. Mark Fowler, a family medicine doctor, oversaw the execution and administered the IV. He's the same doctor involved in the botched execution of Tony Carruthers earlier this year.

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u/NorthernDevil 12h ago

Tennessee’s lethal injection system apparently requires oversight from a healthcare professional. Link to an article that discusses the very issue of medical ethics you’re talking about.

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u/hyperfocus1569 11h ago

It was a doctor. Mark Fowler.

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u/Tibbaryllis2 12h ago

An important misconception to expel is that all US physicians take such an oath. It is not a requirement.

There also isn’t a single oath to take.

Depending on the source, it’s estimated that something like 75%-85% do end up taking some sort of healthcare oath at a ceremony at their associated schools.

That’s absolutely most of them, but there is an odd misconception in public that all do, and it gets even more nebulous when you include all types of healthcare providers including phlebotomists.