Emergency calls from botched Christa Pike execution released to US media

What the report says

Emergency calls released to US media have shed light on delays after the failed execution of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike, according to BBC World News, which said the recordings were first obtained by the Associated Press. The calls suggest confusion among prison staff and emergency responders over whether the request for medical help from Riverbend Prison was genuine, slowing the response while officials tried to verify what was happening in the execution chamber.

In one of the released recordings, a dispatcher can be heard questioning whether the call was a real emergency or some kind of hoax. Another call, from Pike’s defence lawyer Kelly Gleason, urgently asks for life-saving treatment, saying Pike was still alive and breathing. The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications released multiple calls involving police and highway patrol as well as the communications agency.

Pike, 50, was convicted in connection with the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer and was being executed by lethal injection on 30 September when the procedure failed, leaving her in critical condition and taken to hospital. The episode has renewed attention on Tennessee’s capital punishment system and the practical difficulties that can arise during executions, especially when emergency response and prison protocols collide.