Christa Pike seeing 'remarkable physical recovery' but cognitive challenges remain: Lawyers

Christa Pike has made a "remarkable physical recovery" in the days since she regained consciousness following her botched execution in Tennessee, though "there's a lot of cognitive uncertainty left," her attorney told ABC News on Thursday.

"We're not sure exactly of the long-term effects, but she's clearly cognitively not quite back to normal and may have a long ways to go," one of her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell with Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, told ABC News. "There's a lot of psychological trauma that she's going through and still suffering through."

"But her physical state is improving remarkably," he said.

Pike, the lone woman on Tennessee's death row, was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Her attempted execution by lethal injection came after a series of last-minute legal challenges.

She survived being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized following the failed Sept. 30 execution in Nashville, her attorneys said. She was initially on a ventilator following the execution attempt before regaining consciousness on Tuesday, her attorneys said.

"She's very traumatized, having gone through this process," Ferrell said. "And of course, we're talking about a person who suffered a life of trauma."

Ferrell said Pike is thinking about her victim's family and "wonders what they've been going through and how awful this must be."

Pike's attorneys said in a statement Thursday she has had "cognitive challenges with concentration and memory," and that her doctors have advised that "it may take months to fully understand whether she sustained lasting cognitive injuries."

Ferrell added, "It's that sort of starting a sentence and losing track of where she was going. It's not that she's unaware, but that she doesn't hold the thought very easily."

Pike is walking with assistance around her hospital room, has started to get a regular diet and her lungs are clear, though she continues to experience pain from burns on her arms, her attorneys said Thursday.

"These are some pretty severe burns, such that when she was trying to sign some papers, she was having a hard time holding a pen, writing her signature," Ferrell said. "How long that will take to heal is still kind of unknown because this isn't a very common injury that doctors see, but they do see a significant amount of tissue damage around the injection sites."

Pike, 50, was believed to have been brain dead and was going to be taken off her life support the day that she woke up "to the shock of everyone," one of her attorneys, Randy Spivey with the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender, told reporters Wednesday.

Spivey said he was not in the room at the time when Pike woke up, but he believes the first thing she said was, "Where am I and who are you?"

"There's still a lot of cognitive confusion," Spivey said during a press briefing. "I think she is angry and confused about everything right now."

Pike's attorneys described her recovery as "medically unprecedented" and said they expect a "long road to recovery." She has pneumonia and a blood clot in one of her arms, according to Spivey, who described her arms and hands as "tremendously swollen."

Her attorneys said Tuesday they continue to ask Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed Tuesday that Pike remains hospitalized but said it could not provide details of her medical condition due to federal privacy laws.

Pike's attorneys filed an emergency motion in Davidson County Chancery Court last week seeking an order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all relevant physical, written and electronic evidence related to the execution attempt. A judge granted the motion during a hearing on Wednesday.

Pike is the first person reported to have survived lethal injection after being given medications, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, whose executive director referred to the failed attempt as "the worst we've ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era."

In the wake of the botched execution, Gov. Lee ordered a temporary halt to scheduled executions in the state and Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada resigned.

The governor's office said in a statement that it has also appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct an independent review of the Tennessee Department of Correction's execution attempt that "will seek to determine whether the protocol was followed and consider whether additional recommendations are necessary to ensure the State's protocol continues to be lawful and effective."

"The State previously retained Stanton in 2022 to conduct an independent review of Tennessee's lethal injection protocol. His work prompted the State and Attorney General's Office to substantially rewrite the protocol before executions resumed," the statement further said.