Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of a lethal injection on Wednesday during a botched execution attempt. Now a witness has spoken out about the ordeal.

The 50-year-old had been incarcerated in solitary confinement for over 30 years for the 1995 torture and murder of her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, with her then-boyfriend.

Pike’s execution should have taken just a few minutes at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. It would have made her the first woman to be executed in the state of Tennessee for more than 200 years.

However, after the doses had been administered, Christa reported her arm feeling like it was ‘about to burst,’ and asked if it was ‘normal.’ She was later heard snoring while strapped to the gurney.

Pike was eventually taken to hospital in a critical condition, where, on Thursday, her lawyers said she was receiving care. Randall Spivey, one of her attorneys, said her prognosis is unclear.

He said: ‘Christa is alive right now. We don’t have a sense of her prognosis. She is in a critical condition receiving lifesaving care.’

Before the botched execution, Pike delivered what she thought would be her last words, saying: ‘I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love. I’m good now. I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free. I’m going to celebrate my freedom. This is a good day.’

William Puckett, from East Tennessee news station WVLT, was one of seven media witnesses chosen by the state of Tennessee to view the execution.

He told the Daily Mail that when the curtains opened in the witness room — which is typically adjacent to the execution chamber, where witnesses can watch the execution through glass windows — Christa Pike was ‘lying down on a gurney’.

Puckett said he could only see the right side of her body. ‘I could only see her right arm extended,’ he said, likening it to ‘giving blood at the Red Cross.’

‘There was a single line running into her right arm. You didn’t get to see the process of the needle being put into her arm, which was part of her objection to the injection process to begin with.’

This is because her lawyers had previously argued that the injection would be risky, due to Pike’s blood disorder. It was reported that Pike’s small veins could create complications, as well as cause her extreme pain and bleeding.

Around five minutes after the witness curtains opened, at 7.33pm, Puckett recalled Pike saying: ‘The vein in my arm feels like it’s about to burst.’ The witness continued: ‘One minute later, she goes, “One spot is really throbbing”.’

Puckett said there was ‘no panic’ in Pike’s voice. Rather, ‘it was as if she said, “Oh, I have a bruise.” That’s almost the way she said it. She continued to blink on and off, she was smiling, she let out a couple of laughs. I saw a tear rolling down her right eye.’

However, at 7.37pm, Puckett said Pike took ‘four extremely deep breaths.’ Then, three minutes later, he recalled a rock being placed on Pike’s chest. This is reportedly meant to signal that the final dose of the lethal drug has been administered, and that death should be imminent.

At 7.46pm, Puckett said the curtains closed. But three minutes later, they opened again.

‘That’s when she began to snore. It sounded like, if you have ever walked in on somebody who was snoring, she was in the deepest sleep anyone could be in.’

Apparently, Pike’s body then began to move and her snoring continued ‘but with a noticeable squeak.’

When the witnesses were escorted out by Department of Corrections staff just after 8pm, and after the curtains had been closed for a second time, Puckett said they could still ‘faintly hear that snoring noise.’

Puckett told the outlet that the ‘entire idea of having media witnesses in there is to make sure the process goes correctly.’

He continued: ‘Something clearly in this process did not go right,’ adding: ‘I’m honestly at a loss for words.’

It was later reported that, as well as being given two lethal injections, Pike also had seven needles used in her left arm, one of which appeared to be bent when it was removed.

Spivey, who called the execution attempt ‘cruel’ and ‘torturous,’ said he watched prison staff take an hour trying to establish an IV line.

Puckett also told the outlet that, after leaving the witness room, one member of the Department of Corrections was ‘visibly holding back tears.’

The Daily Mail reported that this claim was backed up by other witnesses, one of whom has witnessed five previous executions. They reportedly said that ‘nothing about today [the execution] was normal.’

Despite Pike’s lawyers calling the execution ‘torturous’ and ‘predictable’ (because they had flagged their client’s blood disorder), Puckett stated that people should still remember Slemmer and her family.

‘There were family members of Colleen Slemmer who have waited 30 years to see this sentence carried out. They too viewed all of this,’ he said.

‘They went into the day thinking that the killer of their daughter, their niece, their aunt, their loved one, was going to meet the sentence handed down by a jury of their peers and then this happened and now, repeatedly, Christa Gail Pike’s name is back in the headlines, instead of Colleen Slemmer who was killed at the hands of Pike and two others.’

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