Murderer Christa Pike's hospital room is surrounded by guards while she is receiving treatment for a botched execution that she may never recover from, her lawyer said.
Pike was sentenced to death by Tennessee in 1996 at the age of 20 for the vicious torture and murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer the previous year.
She had been on death row for 30 years until her execution, which had been delayed time and again, was scheduled to finally be carried out on September 30.
Pike, now 50, was injected by at least seven needles as medical staff attempted to give her two lethal doses of pentobarbital over the course of around two hours, according to witnesses and court filings.
But the murderer survived and could be heard crying, whimpering and breathing loudly throughout the process, according to her lawyers.
By the time members of the media were ushered out of the viewing chamber at 8.53pm, a little more than two hours after they were brought in at 6.41pm, Pike could be heard snoring loudly from behind closed curtains.
Pike was taken to the hospital unconscious with her arms swollen and blistered from the drug. She was intubated and placed on a ventilator, and she remains alive but still unconscious as of Sunday, according to her lawyers.
One of her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday that Pike's room 'is guarded' and that she 'may not fully recover.'
Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during her execution on September 30 in Tennessee. She is now unconscious in a guarded hospital room and may never recover
Pike was sentenced to death at the age of 20 in 1996. She is pictured crying during her sentencing hearing at the time
Pike's victim was a classmate named Colleen Slemmer, who is pictured as a child. Pike tortured Slemmer for up to an hour before murdering her
Pike's attorney, Stephen Ferrell, told CNN's Jake Tapper that his client 'may not fully recover' from her botched execution
'I think one of the main things that will leave this up in the air for a while is the fact that we don't know what the prognosis is, as in the long-term prognosis. If she recovers, she may not fully recover,' the lawyer said.
Ferrell added that Pike has not regained consciousness or been able to say anything since the failed execution, as far as he is aware.
Inside Christa Pike death chamber: Minute-by-minute as she sang and cackled during botched execution
The attorney also said that he has not been allowed inside the hospital room and that 'we don't really know the prognosis yet and may not know for several more days.'
The state of Tennessee has not yet announced whether it plans to attempt to execute Pike again, Ferrell added.
He said that he has asked the state's governor to commute Pike's sentence to life in prison, given the mental and physical torture she suffered throughout the leadup to her execution and the botched process itself.
'We don't know right now, and we may never know, what sort of torture she endured during that process,' Ferrell said.
During Pike's attempted execution, she said: 'My arm feels like it's about to burst open,' and at another point, asked: 'Does this happen like that?'
The botched execution has become a scandal that even drew reaction from President Donald Trump, who the next day said: 'How does that happen? Should be easy to do. It shouldn't be very difficult.'
Pike's botched execution became a scandal that even drew criticism from President Trump, who said: 'It shouldn't be very difficult'
Tennessee's execution protocol does not outline what should be done if an inmate survives two lethal injection doses. The execution chamber where Pike was supposed to die is pictured
It also led Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada to announce he put in his resignation and will step down from the top role later this month.
Strada said it was a 'great honor' to serve in his position and that he still 'believes the Department carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.'
I was a witness at Christa Pike's botched execution. Her tears and laughter will haunt me for ever
'Even so, stepping aside is in the best interest of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward,' he said.
Pike's attorneys have argued that the Department of Correction failed their client.
The lawyers said they believe problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into Pike's body instead of her bloodstream.
'Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms Pike's body,' the lawyers wrote in a court filing.
They wrote that instead of 'remedying this failure,' the execution team prepared and administered a backup set of pentobarbital syringes.
Pike's lawyers are seeking to have all of the evidence from her botched execution preserved so they can ensure accountability and protect her legal rights.
Pike's attorneys said that the execution team failed to place the IVs into her veins, causing the lethal injection to enter her body rather than her bloodstream
Pike (pictured in 1996) carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull after bludgeoning the young woman to death with a piece of asphalt
I'll be in the front row to watch my daughter's killer die after 30 years of agony
The court filing emphasized that Pike previously filed an appeal claiming her execution would result in cruel and unusual punishment because of her individual physical characteristics, including thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder and small veins.
Tennessee's execution protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered 'if the inmate is not deceased' after the first set. It does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set.
Governor Bill Lee has halted any additional executions for the year and ordered 'a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.'
At the age of 18, Pike lured Colleen Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee's campus in January 1995 and, alongside her boyfriend and a friend, tortured Slemmer for up to an hour.
Slemmer was stabbed more than 100 times with a box cutter before Pike bludgeoned her to death with a piece of asphalt, carved a pentagram into her chest and took a piece of her caved-in skull as a sick souvenir.