Christa Pike Remains Shackled to Hospital Bed Despite Severe Arm Injuries as Lawyer Says DOC Refused Medical Staff's Request to Remove Them

As of Wednesday, October 7, Christa Pike remained handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed despite the severe damage to both of her arms caused by Tennessee’s failed execution attempt.

Her attorney told a judge that Tennessee had denied the medical staff’s request to remove the restraints.

“Based on our understanding, medical staff have asked that the shackles be removed and have been denied that request by TDOC,” attorney Luke Ihnen said, referring to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

Ihnen made the request during a hearing in Nashville before Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles. “Medical personnel have requested that her hand at least be unshackled, given the extensive damage done to her arms and hands,” Ihnen said. Pike is shackled to the bed by both feet and her right arm, according to her legal team.

The state cited Pike’s “escape history” when opposing the removal of the shackles, and Myles said she’ll decide whether to release the hand after receiving input from health care professionals.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital given to her during an execution attempt at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday, September 30. She was taken to the hospital and has remained there for treatment.

The attorneys representing Pike said in a statement on Tuesday, October 6, “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented.”

Pike’s attorney Randy Spivey said she was believed to be “brain dead” until Tuesday, a day after her lawyers had been warned she’d be taken off life support. Spivey said Pike is “very aware” that the state attempted to carry out her death sentence. He further stated that Pike is “angry and confused,” and noted that her arms are “extremely swollen.” Pike’s attorneys said they expect she’ll require “a long recovery” at a minimum, and they also reported that she has pneumonia and is unable to move her arms.

Myles granted the attorneys’ request to require the state to protect all evidence related to the attempted execution, including medical supplies, restraints, video recordings, logbooks and electrocardiogram readouts from the execution chamber.

State attorneys said the Tennessee Department of Correction had already placed evidence from the execution chamber in a preservation room. Pike’s attorneys alleged in their motion that the execution team failed to realize the IV lines hadn’t been placed correctly “or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering” her body.

Ihnen also told the judge that he waited more than two hours to see Pike at the hospital.

“TDOC continues to put up roadblocks, for not only the providers at the hospital, but for counsel,” he said. Myles ordered Pike’s attorneys to submit visit requests to wardens two hours in advance, and wardens must respond within that window.

“All of this was foreseeable and foreseen,” one of Pike’s attorneys said after the hearing.

Gov. Bill Lee has announced that Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, will step down later this month. An assistant attorney general told the judge, “There is no pending execution order for Miss Pike. There is no allegation that one is coming.”

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of her fellow Knoxville Job Corps student, Colleen Slemmer. Pike is the only female inmate currently on death row in Tennessee, and her attorneys have asked Lee to commute her sentence.