What to know about Christa Pike, who survived a lethal injection execution attempt in Tennessee

Christa Pike, a 50-year-old inmate in Tennessee, survived a lethal injection execution attempt on Wednesday, making her the only inmate in history to do so. The execution was halted about an hour before it was set to begin when a federal appeals court intervened. After an eight-hour delay, the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed the lethal injection to proceed eight hours later.

Pike was strapped to a gurney with an IV in her arm when media witnesses saw her, and she expressed readiness to be free. She sang a song with her spiritual adviser and made noises for an hour after losing consciousness. Prison officials followed their lethal injection protocols, but Pike's attorney demanded a telephone call to stop the execution.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee later canceled the state’s last execution of 2026 and ordered a comprehensive third-party investigation into what went wrong with Pike's case. Pike had previously requested that the governor commute her sentence due to her suffering from a medical condition called thrombocytosis, which could cause issues with blood clotting and bleeding during the injection process. Her legal team argued that this condition could make death by lethal injection agonizing.