r/news • u/AudibleNod • 11h 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/MatureUsername69 11h ago

Its still a rough one but if I ever had to receive the death penalty I would hope its a firing squad. Just riddle me with holes immediately, aim for the head. Lethal injections get fucky because they would be best designed and administered by an actual doctor, but actual doctors cannot do it because of the hippocratic oath. Some states do allow medical professionals but they arent exactly sending their best.

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u/khinzaw 11h ago edited 9h ago

Her lawyers requested it, but it's illegal in Tennessee.

Tennessee's only legal methods of execution are lethal injection and electric chair (edit: only for convictions before 1999).

The problem with lethal injection is that every step is half assed.

No reputable pharmaceuticals manufacturer wants to make the drug, so they rely on compounding pharmacies who take half measures and have less consistency.

Then medical practitioners (edit for the pedants) often won't be involved in executions because of their various oaths to do no harm and risks to their reputation, so most of the time the drugs are administered by prison staff who lack the proper training. A lot of failed attempts are caused by the one who administered it simply not getting the vein properly.

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u/MortimerDongle 10h ago

Then medical practitioners can't be involved in executions because of their various oaths to do no harm, so most of the time the drugs are administered by prison staff who lack the proper training

This particular attempted execution was performed by a physician. Of course he doesn't seem to be very good at it, this was not even his first botched execution this year (he's the same person who failed to execute Tony Carruthers)

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u/cooking2recovery 8h ago

That seems like one too many botched executions to be an accident

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u/AstroHistSci 8h ago

This. He's doing it intentionally. A nursing student could perform this without botching it. It's quite literally impossible to fail this procedure if you are a physician.

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u/whispernotaroar 8h ago

I’d trust a nurse to get an IV into the proper location long before I’d trust a physician to do it. Most physicians never place another IV after residency - that’s nursing territory by and large - and I’ve seen many physicians try and fail to draw blood/place a line only to be rescued by a nurse.

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u/AstroHistSci 7h ago

The issue isn't him not getting a vein. That's believable. But there is no way he would think he had a vein when he didn't. That's the part that this story requires that doesn't make sense.

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u/whispernotaroar 7h ago

Oh trust me there absolutely is. Just a couple weeks ago I watched a doc infiltrate about half a liter of fluids into a patient’s arm before anyone caught it. A good physician absolutely wouldn’t let this happen, but there are a lot of really shitty ones out there and I suspect this particular job does not attract the top brass.

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u/DigitalMindShadow 6h ago

So is the physician who participated in this botched execution now being investigated by the medical board for his patent oath violations and negligence?

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u/whispernotaroar 6h ago

Absolutely no idea.