Emergency help was delayed by confusion after failed execution of Christa Pike, 911 calls reveal

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials following her failed lethal injection last month, according to 911 dispatch recordings reviewed by The Associated Press.

The recordings 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 first call came in at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, and it was more than half an hour before prison officials affirmed it was legitimate.

“Per supervisors here .... we have been informed it is a false call,” one unidentified person says at 9:03 p.m. “There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”

Four minutes later, a responder reported: “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.”

It wasn’t until 9:11 p.m. that prison officials affirmed the call for help was legitimate, the calls show.

Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. At one point, Pike was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. However, they said Pike woke up and began talking and walking with assistance, and she has since been discharged and is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years.

Johnson reported from Seattle and Schoenbaum from Salt Lake City.