Wire reporting: (AP, via Local 10)

Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike issued her first public statement Friday since a lethal injection on Sept. 30 did not kill her, saying through her lawyers that she remains in pain and has been largely isolated in prison medical care^1,9.

Pike, 50, said she entered the execution chamber at Riverbend prepared to die and later woke in a hospital, confused and hurting^1,9. "There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," she said in remarks released by her legal team¹.

The BBC reported that she survived two injections of pentobarbital, was left in critical condition, and was later discharged from hospital at the end of September¹. WKRN, citing doctors on her legal team, reported a theory that an intravenous line was not placed properly, sending the drug into surrounding tissue rather than a vein⁹.

In the statement, which WKRN said was dictated to her lawyers, Pike said she had not contemplated life beyond that night and was hurt by what she called incompetence that put many people in a terrible position⁹. She also said she continues to think about her victim's family⁹.

Pike was convicted in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville; she was 18 at the time, WKRN reported⁹. A co-defendant, Tadaryl Shipp, was not sentenced to death because he was not legally an adult, the BBC reported¹. WKRN said Pike is Tennessee's only woman on death row and would have been the first woman executed in the state in more than 200 years⁹.

WKRN said she is in the infirmary at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center while courts consider whether another execution may proceed⁹. Gov. Bill Lee demanded a review of the state's execution procedures, indefinitely postponed Pike's execution, and delayed the remaining 2026 execution of Gary Wayne Sutton, the station reported⁹. In May, Tennessee halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff could not place an IV; Lee later granted a one-year reprieve in that case⁹.

Pike said she is recovering but that healing is not the same as being okay, and that isolation in the medical ward recalls years she spent in solitary confinement⁹. "I don't know why I survived that night," she said, according to WKRN's text of the statement⁹. What courts will do next has not been decided⁹.