Newly released 911 records show Tennessee’s call for an ambulance after Christa Pike survived her execution was treated as a possible prank, delaying help about 30 minutes.
Pike, 50, is the Tennessee death row inmate who survived two doses of pentobarbital, the first person on record to survive after execution drugs entered her body. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer.
The first call came at 8:40 p.m. from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. The caller said Pike was unconscious and breathing slowly, but could not give dispatchers the verification code for the prison.
“There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”
Dispatcher, at 9:03 p.m., in the released recordings
At 9:03 p.m. dispatchers told responders the call was false. Pike’s attorney Kelly Gleason called at about 9:08 p.m. asking for lifesaving care, and prison officials confirmed the emergency was real around 9:11 p.m. Responders then got through the gates.
The records came out Oct. 12 after a public records request. Pike spent more than a week in the hospital, woke up Oct. 6, and was sent back to prison Oct. 10.
The fallout is still going. The state’s prison chief has since resigned, and Lee ordered the outside review while the state figures out what happened that night.
The state still has not said what happens next for a woman it already tried to execute once.
See also: Tennessee Tried to Execute Her. The Drugs Didn’t Kill Her. Now She’s Back in Prison. and Christa Pike Is Awake and Talking Six Days After Surviving Her Own Execution