A US woman, Christa Pike has survived death row, despite receiving two doses of a lethal drug.
Pike who was meant to be put to death for a murder in 1995, was found to be alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection, with her legal team revealing that she was taken by ambulance from the prison.
In a statement, they said: "We have not been informed as to her condition".
Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of fatally stabbing and beating 19 year old, Colleen Slemmer in 1995, who was their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville.
Court filings from yesterday said that Pike, who was just 18 years old when she committed the murder, was given two doses of pentobarbital. A death penalty expert described this fiasco as an unprecedented failure.
Robin M Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said that seven other people have survived medical problems after the execution's team failed to access a vein to administer lethal injection drugs, but nobody has ever survived after receiving the drugs used in such executions, saying that what Christ Pike has experienced is "singular and unparalleled".
"We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy", Pike's lawyers added, per reports in RTÉ.
Media witnesses observing from another room had said that curtains were opened by officials at 7.27pm, showing Pike strapped to a gurney.
Reports had added that Christa Pike had also prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel this way, having remained awake. It does remain unclear as to what she was referring to.
At 8.26pm, it was revealed by execution witnesses that the second odes of pentobarbital was administered. But Pike could be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8.53pm.
Speaking to media witnesses, a spokesperson for Tennessee Department of Correction, Dorinda Carter said that she was not able to provide any information about what had happened.
This is the second time that Tennessee had failed to carry out an execution, with state officials saying that they called of a lethal injection of Tony Carruthers in May.
Carruthers was convicted of kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994. This happened after executioners had failed to place an IV to administer pentobarbital, despite trying for over an hour.
Pike's lawyers filed an emergency motion to the US Supreme Court, calling to immediately halt and stay the execution, claiming that their client was in "unnecessary agony", and that her rights were violating to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment.
Motions in the Sixth Circuit court and district court were also filed.
The motion said that the Department of Correction should begin lifesaving measures: "Failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs".
Christa Pike had been initially scheduled to be put to death in the morning, with witnesses gathering around the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals had voted to issue to the stay by 2-1.
The courts stated that this delay was needed in order to consider Pike's allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered during her sentencing.
Christa Pike's case had received huge attention as a pentagram was carved on Ms Slemmer's body, while other elements to the crime had stoked fears of Satan worship during the "satanic panic" of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Supreme Court were told by the attorney general's office in their appeal that halting this execution at the eleventh hour had traumatised Ms Slemmer's family, and had rewarded "abusive delay tactics" by Pike's legal team.
The way was later cleared by the high court for the execution to take place, with three liberal members signing a dissent that said Pike's claims deserved a closer look.
The dissent was written by Supreme Court Judge Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying the decision to vacate the stay had interfered with the Sixth Circuit court's handling of the case and had "unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim".
Speaking to the media, Governor Bill Lee said that Tennessee will halt an execution planned for later this year, calling for a "comprehensive, third party review" of the failed execution of Christa Pike, while also telling the Tennessean and NewsNation in a statement that "The remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year". (All quotes in this piece according to RTÉ).
