US death row inmate survives two lethal injections, wakes up 'angry and confused'

A 50-year-old woman on death row in the United States who survived two doses of a lethal injection drug has regained consciousness and is feeling angry and confused.

Attorneys for death row inmate Krista Pike, 50, held a news conference Wednesday saying Pike "seems to be angry and confused about everything" and appeared furious over the botched execution, The New York Times reported.

Pike survived after receiving two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital at a Nashville, Tennessee prison on Sept. 30 and was subsequently transferred to a hospital.

She regained consciousness Tuesday, about a week later. She remains restrained in a hospital bed with handcuffs.

According to her attorneys, corrections officials used at least seven needles in one of Pike's arms to find a vein for the drug injection during the execution. They said the process left her arm with extensive blood clots, blisters and burn-like injuries. One attorney said Pike's hands had swollen to look "like surgical gloves blown up with air."

Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, said the drug may have leaked into tissue surrounding the vein during the execution, potentially causing Pike's blood oxygen levels to drop low enough to cause permanent brain damage.

Pentobarbital, the drug used in the execution, works by halting electrical activity in the brain.

Pike's attorneys are calling on the state to allow her to serve the rest of her life in prison rather than attempt another execution, arguing she has already suffered enough through the state's failed attempt. Tennessee protocol requires a second dose of the drug if an inmate does not die after the first, but there are no guidelines covering what to do if the inmate survives the second dose as well.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer alongside her boyfriend and others in 1995, when she was 18.

The head of the state corrections agency overseeing the execution has announced his resignation.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that state Corrections Commissioner Frank Strada would step down at the end of this month, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Lee said he would halt all executions in Tennessee for the remainder of this year and launch an independent investigation into the incident.

Calls for Strada's accountability grew after two failed executions in Tennessee this year. Earlier this year, another execution attempt in the state was also botched after medical staff failed to properly insert an intravenous line.

Strada maintained that the corrections department had followed established procedures, while also saying that stepping down while an independent investigation was underway was in the best interest of Tennesseans.

Pike's legal team said of Strada's resignation that it was "warranted but does nothing for Krista right now," adding that "what happened to her reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one individual."