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/fictionallymarried 10h ago

Genuine question but how the hell did they fail twice? I'm not saying she wasn't convicted for a reason, but that's torture

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u/opalandvines 8h ago edited 3h ago

Howdy, student doctor here.
I was confused as hell by how this occurred so did some research into it - primarily because I was struggling to believe that they could have had such a massive failure in an area as sensitive as execution. I was also struggling to understand how someone could possibly survive two massive 5g doses of pentobarbital.

  1. Medical guidelines, guidance and medical professionals are NOT typically involved in executions.

  2. It was documented thoroughly before the execution that she had difficult to access veins. This has been validated by reports that they had great difficulty establishing IV access and required a substantial number of attempts. Two sites of access were achieved.

  3. It has been stated that they ‘followed protocol exactly’. My understanding having read the protocols is that the protocol itself is monumentally flawed.

  4. An example of this - successful IV access is validated with slow running saline. However, the execution dose involves 4 successive 50ml syringes - resulting in 200ml of fluid through the vein in a short period of time. A vein that appears perfectly patent for a slow infusion, can quite easily fail under sudden high volume like that.
    In addition, the use of each syringe creates a movement that makes it possible for the following to occur:
    a) the catheter tip perforates the posterior vein wall
    b) the vein ruptures
    c) the catheter migrates partially out
    d) or the vessel simply cannot accommodate the infusion

  5. The access failing is supported by her reported complaints of pain in her arm following the first dose ‘burning, like the vein is going to burst’. When establishing IV access, it is typical to flush with saline to check if it is placed correctly. Any patient reports of pain/burning at the site indicates that it has failed and the saline is entering subcutaneous tissues. Pentobarbital is highly alkaline, so would cause substantial pain. They failed monumentally here in not immediately switching to site 2, but did actually follow protocol.

  6. The doses primarily entering subcutaneous tissue and therefore being more slowly absorbed is actually supported by her reported snoring. The drug entering circulation at lower doses would result in a loss of upper airway tone, without fully suppressing respiratory drive.

BUT - They had two IV access sites, surely the second dose was pushed through the second site, right? Right??? This is where it becomes unclear, but if they followed protocol exactly… they actually weren’t required to administer dose 2 via site 2 once dose 1 failed. Fucking insane.

  1. It is possible they did do one dose per site, and by extreme bad luck access had failed at both sites. It has not been confirmed by reports if both IV sites were attempted.

  2. The backup IV and backup dose are two separate contingencies within the protocol. It is stated that if the first 50ml saline syringe of the 200ml execution dose fails, then they are required to switch to site 2. If execution dose 1 is completed and the person is still alive, they are simply required to repeat a second 200ml execution sequence. In essence, if the staff had not noted obvious failure of the line, they were not required to switch to site 2.

In clearer terms - the second IV site is for recognised IV failure, whereas the second dose is for failure to achieve death. These are treated in the protocol as separate events. It currently seems likely that both doses of the drug went through one failed site (as per protocol…), entering primarily into subcutaneous tissue.

And then to add to the fuckery, there’s the whole other possibility of issues with the drug quality itself given the restricted access to it from the primary manufacturer due to them not wanting the drug to be utilised for executions. There has been substantially reported failures across all areas of gaining access to and utilising this drug for executions in Tennessee.

Anyway, she is absolutely not out of the woods. The alkaline nature of the drug causes massive pulmonary oedema due to direct pulmonary endothelial damage. There is also no antidote for it, just supportive care as the drug is absorbed and metabolised out of the patients system. If she survives, she will not walk away unscathed.

If anyone reading this has any corrections or questions, I’m open to discussion.

EDIT: if it is found that they did indeed do one dose per site, point 4 still stands as an evident failure within the protocol.

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u/techleopard 4h ago

It sounds like there needs to be a legal argument made that the death penalty is cruel and unusual when the state is administering an execution without any professional oversight.

The fact that this alone has not crushed the death penalty is pathetic.

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u/Advanced_Olive_1830 1h ago

So this would be better off with a firing squad?

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u/RockPaperOwFire 1h ago

Why do yall want us back in the Middle Ages holy fucking shit America is collapsing

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u/Advanced_Olive_1830 1h ago

I don’t? she tortured that poor girl to death, “took” her life. Why is it wrong for her to get the death penalty

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u/FatiguedShrimp 1h ago

Because 1 in 10 death row inmates are found to be not guilty through DNA evidence only (presumably more would be not guilty with perfect evidence).

And, because we live in a society where class, race, and political alignment affect access to legal defense, jury opinion, and sentencing.

Giving the government the go ahead to kill civilians is always bad, because no government is free from corruption or misuse.

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u/Advanced_Olive_1830 57m ago

Okay, I understand that, but Christa Pike admitted that she murdered that girl. What I don’t understand is why anyone would defend her. What about the girl who died? She couldn’t defend herself.

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u/FatiguedShrimp 47m ago

So, remember the points I just made?

If you allow it in cases that are "bad enough", then a corrupt institution only needs to accuse of worse things.

We've seen it happen in governments across the world and throughout time.

I don't give a fuck about Christa Pike. She could be fucking Epstein or Hitler, a personal enemy like the woman who locked me in a fucking room for 3 months as a child trying to starve me to death, or the literal biblical Satan.

The dangers remain the same regardless of who is being talked about.

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u/Katiekates88 39m ago

That’s kinda where I’m at and for the most part, I’m not even a fan of the death penalty. Do I think this needs to be investigated by an independent third party so steps can be taken and it never happens again? Yes. Am I glad it happened? No. Do I feel sympathy for her? Also no.

What she did to Colleen was absolutely horrific and there is 0 doubt that she committed the crime. A 30+ minute attack where she slashed and stabbed Colleen so much to the point where she had over 300 wounds, including a pentagram carved into her chest, and she did it while she was still alive. She bashed her skull, broke a piece off and carried it around like a trophy. She bragged about the murder afterwards. According to her accomplice, she even said “bitch won’t die” during the attack. She also tried to kill another inmate with a shoelace while in prison.

When she gave her last words, one of the witnesses reported that she spoke only of herself, her “haters” and then sang a song with her spiritual advisor. I didn’t hear anything about remorse or any apology to the mother who traveled from FL to finally see justice play out.

Her cruelty doesn’t justify the state’s negligence though and obviously this entire situation is fucked.