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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials following her failed execution last month, according to 911 dispatch recordings.
The recordings, obtained Monday by The Associated Press through a public records request, show that precious minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate.
The initial 911 call came in at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, just over an hour after the attempted lethal injection got underway. But the caller was unable to provide a code that would help verify the legitimacy of the request.
“Per supervisors here at the DEC (Department of Emergency Communications) we have been informed it is a false call,” a dispatcher says at 9:03 p.m. “There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”
It wasn’t until about half an hour after the initial call — close to 9:11 p.m. — that prison officials affirmed it was real and began letting responders through the gates.
Neither the Tennessee Department of Correction nor Pike’s legal team immediately responded to requests for comment.
The prisoner becomes a patient
Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state tried to execute her for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.
State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn’t result in death, but it doesn’t spell out what to do if an inmate survives the second injection.
The first 911 call, released only as a written transcript, reported that Pike was unconscious and not breathing normally.
After being taken to a hospital, Pike was on a ventilator for several days. At one point, her attorneys did not expect her to survive. She regained consciousness last Tuesday and began talking limitedly and walking with assistance, they said. Pike was discharged from the hospital and returned to the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her lawyers said Saturday.
Confusion begins with the initial 911 call
The initial call came from a person whose name and title were redacted. The caller told a dispatcher that they were at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where they had tried to execute someone, but she was still alive.
As emergency responders worked to verify the call, they were in touch with representatives of the prison’s Central Control, who said they “would have been the ones to call in and they did not make that call,” according to a recording time-stamped at 9:07 p.m.
Around the same time, a first responder could be heard over the radio saying, “Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it’s real and demanding us to go in. They say they are some sort of state official. I need somebody to get out to the gate and talk to those people.”
Central Control confirmed the call was legitimate a few minutes later, clearing the way for responders to enter through the gates at about 9:11 p.m. An AP reporter witnessed an ambulance and fire trucks pull up to the building inside the prison campus at 9:14 p.m.
At 9:34 p.m., as medics were transporting Pike to a hospital, one asked dispatch to make sure the prison knew where they were taking her.
“Just ’cause there’s been so much other confusion, I want to make sure they are aware of this,” the responder said.
Two other calls were made
The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications released with some redactions a batch of audio recordings, including radio traffic and calls with emergency dispatchers. Police said the audio from the first 911 call was exempt from public disclosure under state law.
Two subsequent emergency calls were made, including one at 9:08 p.m. by one of Pike’s attorneys, Kelly Gleason.
“My client, Christa Gail Pike, is undergoing a state execution. She has completed the stages of the protocol and last we knew from the attorney who is present, she is still alive and breathing and needs immediate life-saving care,” Gleason said on the call.
Further executions paused pending review
The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong in the attempted execution. Gov. Bill Lee paused further execution attempts pending a review. It’s unclear whether the state will try executing Pike again.
Medical experts have raised a few possibilities that could explain how Pike was able to survive, including potential drug quality issues and the placement of IV lines causing the drug to pool in her tissue.
Before the execution attempt, Pike’s attorneys told courts and prison officials that she had a blood disorder that could cause clotting at injection sites.
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Johnson reported from Seattle and Schoenbaum from Salt Lake City.
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