Christa Pike ‘angry and confused’ as she wakes up with ‘extraordinary swelling’ from failed lethal injection

The convicted murderer had been left critically ill and on a ventilator just last week. Given her condition on Monday, which her attorneys described as "brain dead", her life support machine was due to be switched off.

But in a "shock to everyone" Mr Spivey says, she awoke on Tuesday - and nobody, her attorneys nor medical professionals, have an explanation as to how.

While Pike has begun to talk, she has pneumonia and is yet to be able to swallow.

She also has a blood clot in one of her arms, and both her arms and hands are "tremendously swollen".

"Her hands looked like if you were to blow up a surgical glove," he described, saying her recovery is "medically unprecedented".

Mr Spivey revealed Pike was accommodating to the execution team on the night of the failed execution attempt - even helping them find a vein - but that all changed when the injection began.

She has been unconscious from that moment.

Christa Pike has woken up feeling 'angry and confused' after she survived two lethal injections during a botched execution attempt in Tennessee, US, her attorneys have said

BBC

"We don't know the toll all of this will take" on her mental state, Mr Spivey said, noting she was now "angry and confused".

Her first question after she awoke, according to her attorneys, was: "Where am I and who are you?"

Chillingly, she is also said to have asked about the family of Ms Slemmer, the woman she brutally murdered at the age of just 18, some 31 years ago.

Amid the initial confusion, Pike now appears to have her senses. Mr Spivey says she is "very aware" of the failed execution attempt.

He warned that "what happened to Christa was exactly what the state was warned would happen," and, before concluding the press briefing, confirmed Pike's consciousness is just the first step in a long legal battle that is set to commence.

Pike's legal team are said to have warned Tennessee officials of the dangers the injection of the lethal drug pentobarbital could have on her - never mind two doses.

They had previously appealed against her execution, claiming it would amount to cruel and unusual punishment due to her health issues, including thrombocytosis, small veins and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Her lawyers believe faulty IV lines meant the drug seeped into her tissue rather than entering her bloodstream.

Pike is the second case of a failed execution in Tennessee this year, and has ultimately led to the resignation of Tennessee’s prison chief, Frank Strada.

Governor Bill Lee has suspended all further executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review into what happened.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 following the gruesome murder of Ms Slemmer, whom she met at a job training facility.

Along with the aide of her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, she stabbed and beat the 19-year-old to death on the University of Tennessee's Agricultural campus.

Governor Bill Lee has suspended all further executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review into what happened

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Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole owing to his age.

Investigators said the pair carved a satanic pentagram into Slemmer's chest, and Pike kept a piece of her victim's skull as a trophy.

She was anticipated to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries. Whether there will be another execution attempt is unknown, but there is not currently an order in process.

Her attorneys are continuing their efforts to prevent a second execution attempt.