Adnkronos (Adnkronos) –
Pain everywhere, "not just physical. There's pain in my mind and soul." These are the words of Christa Pike, a survivor of the attempted lethal injection in Tennessee on September 30th. In a statement released by her lawyers, the 50-year-old woman explains that she is on the mend, "but mending is not the same as being well."
Hospitalized, Pike explained that "since that night, there hasn't been a single moment where I haven't felt pain. My whole body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still have trouble speaking." But "the pain isn't just physical.
There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 stabbing murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer. After the botched execution, Pike was intubated, and her lawyers did not expect her to survive. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Pike is the only person to have survived lethal chemical injection during an execution.
She and her lawyers have now begun a legal battle to prevent a second execution attempt. "Since that night, I have been mostly isolated in the prison infirmary, far from other people and the human connections that mean so much to me," Pike said in the statement. "This isolation brings with it a particular pain. I spent 28 years in solitary confinement, and much of what I am experiencing today is a repetition of that condition," she added.
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