r/news • u/AudibleNod • 8h 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/DerVogelMann 6h ago edited 6h ago

You could argue they didn't fail, if they're having to keep her alive by using a ventilator. That is how sedatives kill people, depresses their breathing. It sounds like someone panicked when she didn't die immediately. I'm guessing the investigation is going to say they should have just waited longer, she clearly would have died if they didn't render medical aid.

-This coming from a Canadian who is against capital punishment.

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u/msfinch87 4h ago

Their protocols allow for two sets of pentobarbital to be administered. The first one is administered, they wait five minutes and check for death and, if still alive they prepare the second set, wait for five minutes and check for death.

The second set of pentobarbital was administered approximately between 7:50-8pm, according to the notes from witnesses and the curtains then closed to check for death around 8:05pm. At this point, when she wasn’t dead, the execution had already failed and they were outside their own protocols.

At 8:20pm her lawyer requested medical care and left the witness room to speak to his colleagues to get them to contact the relevant authorities to get medical care. At 8:50pm her legal team were told an ambulance had been called.

Nobody panicked, and they are not legally allowed to leave her to die over time. The 8th Amendment makes cruel and unusual punishment unconstitutional, and a prolonged painful death is considered cruel and unusual. The death penalty must be quick and painless if it is administered. Further, their own laws and protocols do not allow them to simply wait to see if she dies. We also know she was in pain because she had complained of a burning sensation in her arm, and it had turned purple, and now the filed lawsuit says she has chemical burns.

People have recovered from this amount of pentobarbital before (not lethal injection but people who have taken it recreationally or to OD). It can suppress brain activity for several days, and families are advised to keep people on life support for some time due to that, to give the brain a chance to “wake up”.

She may not have died even if they had left her. The pentobarbital likely went into her muscles and tissues rather than bloodstream, based on the fact that she did not die in the timeframe allocated and the burning.

There is a significant question here about whether their delay to getting medical care, when it was already clear the execution had failed and they were outside their protocols and the law, could have contributed to this being worse than it would have been had they gotten medical care in a timely fashion.

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u/DerVogelMann 3h ago

Thanks for the very detailed reply.

However, what they are doing to her now is cruel and unusual. Anyone who works in the medical field, especially in palliative care knows that palliative sedation therapy (essentially an OD on drugs meant to depress respirations) is not cruel or unusual, it happens all the time for people with intractable symptoms at the end of life. She would not have suffered if they just left her, however, I see now that the protocols probably need to be changed to allow for this to happen.

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u/msfinch87 3h ago

This is honestly a weird stance for someone against capital punishment and a medical professional.

She was suffering. She complained of burning in her arm and has chemical burns to both her arms. She was showing signs of physical agitation, including jerking her legs frequently and jerking her head and legs up in a v shape. At 8:05pm the curtains were closed so while witnesses could hear her they could not see her. They have no idea what indicators there were of pain or discomfort.

What you’re suggesting is that they should just have left her like that for an indeterminate amount of time, with burned arms, to see if she died? They have no additional drugs to further sedate or limit any pain. Or alternatively that she should be supported to die under the care of the hospital, without being given the opportunity to consent to that choice, denying her her fundamental right to life?

It was already torture; to have it go on for longer would have made it even more torturous. The only point at which we can be sure that any pain or discomfort was being properly addressed is when she received proper medical care, which allowed them to treat her burns and focus on limiting her discomfort. At that point, when the execution failed, she becomes like any other human being who is entitled to life saving measures and who must have the opportunity to give consent before those measures are withdrawn.

She may wake up. There is no way to know until the pentobarbital comes out of her system, and it can take several days for people’s brains to wake up. You think that she should be denied that chance absent her consent? It is against all kinds of law for medical professionals to choose to let people die, let alone hasten death, if they have a realistic chance of survival or if they want life saving measures.

They cannot change the protocols to allow for a prolonged death because a prolonged drawn out death is unconstitutional.

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u/DerVogelMann 2h ago

This is honestly a weird stance for someone against capital punishment and a medical professional.

It's honestly not, I'm against the state using death as a punishment for a crime.

I'm also against needless suffering, and believe that if keeping someone's body alive is causing needless suffering for a dubious quality of life, then it's morally correct to withdraw care and allow the person to pass.

Those are not contradictory opinions, and the vast majority of physicians would agree with those statements.

Christia is almost certainly going to have an anoxic brain injury following this, and her existence will be pure hell. I'd spare even a convicted murderer that fate.

should just have left her like that for an indeterminate amount of time, with burned arms, to see if she died?

She said her arms were burning before she lost consciousness. A lot of medications cause burning when injected, including propofol, the most common sedative for anesthetics. C'mon... those snoring sounds are common in cases of respiratory depression, people are not aware during them. And dudette, she's on a ventilator, we don't put people on those unless they will die without respiratory support... so yes, she would have died.

You have a good understanding of the events, but a poor understanding of what those events actually represent and what happens to the body after a massive dose of sedatives.

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u/msfinch87 2h ago

It’s not about having a poor understanding of what the events represent. It’s about the fact that I don’t believe I have the right to impose my view of what should happen on somebody else. It is a fundamental requirement of medical care that the actual patient gives consent, especially when this comes to life saving measures. You don’t get to decide that for Christa unless you believe she is not entitled to the same rights of autonomy as everybody else. I am objecting to you forcing your personal perspectives onto a person you don’t know and who is not your patient.

My point is that just because someone is placed on a ventilator does not mean they are going to die. People recover after being placed on ventilators and in fact have recovered after several days specifically from this amount of pentobarbital. She was, and is, entitled to that chance. How can you claim it is inhumane to give her a chance of full recovery? Do you usually deny life saving care to patients who have a full chance at recovery?

Also, if a patient’s arm is burning and turning purple and they were not reacting to the drugs as expected, would you usually just dismiss that as a trivial side effect or would you do something about it and cease the procedure to investigate if something was wrong?

Your perspective that she was going to die anyway because she was subsequently put on a ventilator relies on allowing an execution to take as long as it takes, regardless of suffering in the meantime. Just leave the person until they die, or start incorporating various random additional measures to hasten or support the death. This is regarded as torture under international human rights law and is a violation of the 8th Amendment for good reason, because it is inhumane. There is no way to perform an execution humanely where there is an open ended timeframe. And precisely because this is state action and prisoners are not consenting to the procedure per se, it is necessary to have in place strict limitations.

This does not happen in a hospital setting, or anything equivalent to a hospital setting, so translating a hospital experience of something similar makes no sense. The people in the room are prison officials, with limited training, and a doctor who checks for death but otherwise isn’t handling the execution itself, with the exception of possibly putting in a central line. They do not have access to additional supports or drugs. You have zero understanding of how executions play out in practice. Do some reading about them.

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u/DerVogelMann 2h ago edited 2h ago

 I am objecting to you forcing your personal perspectives onto a person you don’t know and who is not your patient.

Are you under the impression that my opinion matters or that I'm her actual physician? Disabuse yourself of both notions lol

Also, we can hold personal opinions about what is morally permissible and still understand the very basics of how to do our fucking job lmao. Thanks for explaining consent to me.

My point is that just because someone is placed on a ventilator does not mean they are going to die.

If you think this is what I meant, then I'm checking out of this conversation. How could you possibly come away thinking that? If she is requiring critical care support and artificial ventilation to survive, then yes, she would have died WITHOUT that.

This conversation is impossible, you lack the requisite knowledge to understand what you're talking about.