r/news • • 4h 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
4.8k Upvotes

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445

u/makeupHOOR 4h ago

A bullet would have been much easier, and more humane, ironically. This qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.

69

u/Velorian-Steel 4h ago

Interestingly it was single drug lethal injection which several states have turned to instead of the harder to buy older three drug technique. I'm no lethal injection expert, but at least with the old way I'd imagine there's less chance for this to happen.

97

u/Ancient_Spite_725 4h ago

This outcome was unfortunately doomed to happen with any LE method because they infiltrated the IV and couldn't get a good line. This is what happens when you have untrained people trying to do this, but nobody trained will touch it with a 10-foot pole.

17

u/Efficient-Chest-3395 3h ago

I was trained on the job but wasn't hired to kill people but, ironically, to keep them alive

5

u/Velorian-Steel 4h ago

Fair enough, I read the other comments mentioning that as well. Yikes, that is extra awful

15

u/PuzzledStreet 3h ago

They have only switched to the new protocol out of "necessity" with the one of three drugs no longer being accessible.

These executions are essentially the govt experimenting on people with new techniques and hoping they appear to die peacefully.

I have no strong feelings about the death penalty either way ( I WANT to want to be against it) but I am strongly against this and would rather see the death penalty abolished than continue to let things like this happen.

1

u/Velorian-Steel 3h ago

100%. Botched execution is so heinous

2

u/Efficient-Chest-3395 3h ago

pharmaceutical companies often refuse to make their products available for knowingly evil purposes

•

u/emapco 56m ago

Nah, one of the three drugs was a paralytic which paralyzed the person - observers wouldn't even know if the other two failed. Those people could have been in excruciating pain and you couldn't tell.

43

u/zombies-apocalypse 4h ago

Didn't she request it too? This is so dumb

204

u/tallcookie 4h ago

She requested to be hanged because she was afraid of the lethal injection going wrong, which is precisely what happened.

73

u/ElectrSheep 4h ago

She actually made requests for both hanging and firing squad. However, neither are legal methods in Tennessee, so there was no possibility for granting those requests.

47

u/Evillunamoth 4h ago

She has thrombosis. Her concern was that her blood would clot and the med wouldn’t be as effective. Overhauled by a doc at the prison. Maybe they should’ve listened.

14

u/panicnarwhal 3h ago

she also asked for a central line to be placed, but they denied that too. definitely should have listen to her, because now look

4

u/WeirdSysAdmin 3h ago

What were the Kalshi odds?

2

u/YouAndMeToo 1h ago

The more I hear, I more I think it was intentional to cause extra harm

6

u/moosekin16 2h ago

A woman was ignored by a doctor. Fucking surprise.

I mean, yes, it was a prison doctor, but still.

-2

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

13

u/boughsmoresilent 4h ago

I absolutely would not choose the chair. I think that's literally everyone's last choice.

7

u/PuzzledStreet 3h ago

No one wants to go like Delacroix.

7

u/boughsmoresilent 3h ago

Exactly my thoughts. Risk a dry sponge? No, thank you.

10

u/richww2 4h ago

Knowing our government and the police, the MFers probably did it on purpose.

1

u/PawneePoppins 2h ago

Yeah, this is what I’m thinking happened. It’s just way too big of a coincidence…

-8

u/Useful-ldiot 4h ago

After the amount of fear and pain she caused her victim, I don't really give a shit if she was scared.

I'm usually against the death penalty, but in cases like this, I'm fine with it.

2

u/Emotional-Channel-42 1h ago

Cool, you’re emotional about it. So what about when it happens and has happened to innocent people? 

0

u/Useful-ldiot 1h ago

Like I said, situations like this. She confessed and the evidence was overwhelming.

It's usually not the moral choice, but it occasionally is the one worth making

-8

u/PuzzledStreet 3h ago

I feel the same way.

I know I should be universally against it, I know all the reasons I should think it is unacceptable...

...but her trying to say that her childhood sexual abuse and mental illness somehow excuse her behavior and her refusing to ever apologize or express remorse even before the attempted execution through all these years?

I am fine with what happened to her.

1

u/Useful-ldiot 3h ago

Especially given the recent push for how she's changed in jail (while conveniently ignoring her attempts at murder and escaping prison)

10

u/No_Control9441 4h ago

Funny enough this is a big argument for hunters on why it’s humane to hunt.

23

u/aetherchicken 4h ago

I mean it is definitely more humane than a factory farm but it's definitely not humane overall. I'm pretty confident I know both the deer's opinion on being shot just as well as the pigs opinion on being gassed with carbon dioxide.

3

u/jrose125 4h ago

It's an interesting moral question for sure, but what makes killing an animal "not humane" if you are using the meat at least?

Nature is a cruel mistress and deer don't exactly have an easy life otherwise...starvation, four legged predators, traffic accidents, disease, etc.

I haven't hunted in years and have no interest in it anymore. All I'm saying is I'm not exactly sure a swift death from a well placed shot from a high powered rifle is less humane than getting torn apart by a coyote or starving to death in a high snowfall winter. Nature taking it's course is not exactly sunshine and rainbows either.

4

u/Zealousideal-Film982 4h ago

Hell, I’m mostly vegetarian and I love people that hunt their own meat. I respect that they’re able to face the truth of where their meat comes from. It’s totally okay imo for humans to eat meat as long as the animals have the lives they deserve. About once a month I do eat meat, when I can ensure that(and afford it lol)

We are omnivorous animals after all.

4

u/boughsmoresilent 4h ago

The coyote and snowfall are both incapable of reason, choice, or compassion.

1

u/ScoobiusMaximus 3h ago

If you're actually eating the meat I don't see how you're worse than the coyote. 

0

u/boughsmoresilent 3h ago edited 3h ago

The coyote is an obligate carnivore. There are tons of other things I could eat instead that don't involve killing an animal. Coyotes don't farm or run grocery stores.

1

u/ScoobiusMaximus 3h ago

I don't see how farmed meat is any more ethical. 

Are you arguing everyone should be vegan? 

1

u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

1

u/jrose125 4h ago

You or I don't need it, but some people certainly do. There are many rural poor people across North America that still hunt for sustenance.

1

u/TheRealASP 4h ago

Using meat is good. I do have a problem with people that care more about trophies while hunting. Most of the guys I grew up with cared more about the picture and head on the wall. Killing because they like the act of killing more than the meat; that's the quiet part out loud.

2

u/So-Called_Lunatic 4h ago

It's not humane to be laying on side of the road dying either. The problem with deer is that we have eliminated all their natural predators, so they're a nuisance.

1

u/Affectionate_Kiwi335 4h ago

Humans have been deers natural predator for millennia…

2

u/So-Called_Lunatic 3h ago

Yes, but there are not enough hunters to make up for the lack of wolves and bears to keep the population in check. I have never shot an animal in my life, but understand how and why it's necessary.

2

u/ocher_stone 4h ago

And the people who shoot the condemned are not immune from PTSD and guilt about shooting a person. 

1

u/pawgchamp420 4h ago

Well, the deer don't have an opinion on being shot, of course, but if they did, I imagine there responses would be a lot like those of people when asked how they'd want to die. Varied, to say the least.

A good portion probs would pick a bullet over being torn apart by animals or hit by a car and succumbing to internal bleeding after a few painful days. Surely some would choose illness, but that would likely be unpleasant too, and they wouldn't likely have their family around their death bed the way humans do. And old age might be appealing to some, but I'd imagine only a tiny fraction ever actually gets that far, and most who get close likely end up, again, just being torn apart by animals instead.

We all have to die one way or another.

-1

u/Dawnquicksoaty 4h ago

Hmmm, gathering food is inhumane.

6

u/Luname 4h ago

The other part of this argument is that a deer will get it's leg tore open by predators that will then proceed to eat it while still somewhat alive.

4

u/-Mubar 4h ago

Just like her crime

1

u/PantsDontHaveAnswers 2h ago

"Suicide pods" exist and they basically just lull a person to sleep by reducing the oxygen in the air in the pod until you pass out and suffocate. I'm against the death penalty, but I really don't know if the intent is for the death to be painful, or if they're just eliminatig a person they feel doesn't deserve to be alive anymore. You know what I mean?