Tennessee officials spent hours preparing to kill Christa Pike. When their execution failed, they encountered a problem nobody appeared prepared to handle. They needed an ambulance, but emergency dispatchers were struggling to believe the call was genuine.
At 8:40 p.m. on September 30, 2026, someone inside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville contacted 911. The caller explained how prison personnel had administered two doses of lethal injection drugs to a condemned woman who remained alive. Dispatchers asked for a verification code. The caller had none.
Over the following half-hour, emergency personnel received conflicting accounts from prison officials. One department insisted nobody had requested an ambulance. Another informed responders the emergency was false. Outside the prison gates, medical crews waited for permission to enter while Pike lay unconscious inside.
The extraordinary conversations, released on yesterday, expose an emergency response marked by confusion, disbelief, and repeated communication failures. They also reveal the efforts of Pike’s attorneys, who were desperately seeking medical assistance for a client whose execution they had witnessed.
For the family of Colleen Slemmer, the 19-year-old murdered by Pike in 1995, the evening was supposed to bring an end to three decades of legal proceedings. Instead, Tennessee’s first attempted execution of a woman in more than 200 years ended with the prisoner being rushed to a hospital.
The execution began after a day of legal arguments over whether Tennessee should proceed. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the lethal injection, overturning a temporary reprieve granted by a federal appeals court.
Pike, 50, had been sentenced to death for the torture and murder of Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. She had spent approximately 30 years in prison, exhausting appeals while her victim’s relatives waited for the sentence to be carried out.
Inside the execution chamber, prison personnel struggled with intravenous access. Witnesses heard Pike complain about pain in her arm. Officials eventually administered pentobarbital, the drug Tennessee uses to execute condemned prisoners.
The first dose failed. A second dose followed, bringing the total to 10 grams. Pike lost consciousness, but continued breathing long after the procedure should have ended.
An unidentified prison representative eventually telephoned 911. The caller explained the execution had begun approximately an hour earlier and described the drugs administered to Pike.
“The person is not yet deceased,” the caller reported.
The dispatcher asked about the prisoner’s medical condition. Pike was unconscious, and her breathing was slow and labored. When asked about chest pain, the caller answered, “I don’t know. The person is not conscious.”
The conversation then encountered an unexpected obstacle. The dispatcher requested a code used to verify emergency calls from the prison. Without verification, ambulances faced restrictions on entering the facility without police assistance.
The caller did not know the code. Dispatchers began contacting other agencies, attempting to establish whether a state execution had genuinely gone wrong.
As dispatchers tried to confirm the emergency, the unusual nature of the request created suspicion. Someone was claiming to represent a maximum-security prison where executioners had administered a lethal injection without killing their prisoner.
A Nashville Fire Department employee questioned the missing verification code. The employee asked, “How do they … how do they not have a code?”
The question reflected growing frustration. A caller from a major state institution had requested emergency assistance, yet apparently lacked the information required to bring responders through the gates.
At 8:59 p.m., dispatchers contacted Tennessee Department of Correction Central Control. The response introduced another complication. According to the employee answering the telephone, nobody from the facility had requested an ambulance.
The employee explained colleagues were denying any knowledge of the original emergency call. Dispatchers now faced contradictory information from the same correctional system.
At 9:03 p.m., an unidentified dispatcher relayed a conclusion reached by supervisors. The request for help had been classified as a false alarm.
“There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”
The statement was wrong. Pike remained unconscious following two doses of pentobarbital, and emergency personnel were still waiting to enter the prison.
At 9:06 p.m., correctional officials finally supplied a verification code. Unfortunately, confirmation had not reached everyone involved in the response.
Around 9:07 p.m., someone outside the prison was demanding entry for medical crews. A responder reported the individual claimed to be a state official and insisted the emergency was genuine. Responders wanted someone with authority to resolve the dispute.
The situation had reached an extraordinary point. Emergency crews were outside a prison where the state had failed to execute a woman. Inside, officials needed help. Outside, responders were still waiting for permission to provide assistance.
While dispatchers struggled to verify the emergency, Pike’s attorneys were fighting their own battle to obtain medical treatment.
Attorney Randy Spivey had witnessed the execution. After realizing Pike remained alive, he faced the immediate problem of contacting his colleagues outside the facility. Six locked doors separated him from a telephone, delaying his first call by approximately seven minutes.
The legal team began contacting courts and state officials. An emergency telephone number provided for the Tennessee Supreme Court went to voicemail. Calls to contacts in Gov. Bill Lee’s office received no answer.
Attorney Stephen Ferrell filed an emergency motion at 8:36 p.m., requesting an order compelling prison officials to provide lifesaving treatment. The court acknowledged receipt at 8:47 p.m. A hearing followed, ending shortly after 9 p.m.
Meanwhile, the attorneys remained unaware of the ambulance crews attempting to enter Riverbend.
At 9:08 p.m., attorney Kelly Gleason contacted 911. She identified her client as Christa Gail Pike and explained the execution protocol had been completed, although Pike remained alive.
Gleason told the dispatcher her client “needs immediate life-saving care.”
She described Pike as unconscious and snoring, information suggesting serious breathing difficulties. The dispatcher explained efforts were underway to arrange access through the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Gleason’s call added urgency to an already confused situation. Prison officials had requested an ambulance. Emergency personnel had questioned the request. Now an attorney was independently reporting the same emergency.
At 9:11 p.m., dispatch contacted the Highway Patrol and requested urgent police assistance. The dispatcher explained responders needed help entering the prison because of the verification problems.
“We need to send police hot,” the dispatcher said.
The dispatcher also reported Gleason’s repeated requests for information and described the situation as “escalating.”
For Pike’s attorneys, the concern was immediate. Their client had survived an execution, remained unconscious, and required treatment. They were attempting to obtain assistance without knowing precisely what prison personnel were doing.
Inside Riverbend, officials were responsible for a woman whose death they had been ordered to carry out. The state now faced the responsibility of preserving her life.
At approximately 9:11 p.m., prison officials confirmed the emergency was genuine and cleared the way for responders to enter.
An Associated Press reporter witnessed an ambulance and fire trucks reaching the building housing the execution chamber at approximately 9:14 p.m. The initial request for help had been made 34 minutes earlier.
The delay had involved missing verification information, contradictory statements from correctional personnel, confusion over access procedures, and the eventual involvement of state police.
By the time medical crews reached Pike, she had been unconscious for an extended period following administration of the lethal injection drugs. Her breathing had already been described as abnormal during the first emergency call.
Paramedics began preparing her for transport. At 9:34 p.m., a medic contacted dispatchers with another request. The responder wanted confirmation the prison knew where Pike was being taken, fearing further communication problems.
Radio traffic reviewed by The Tennessean suggests Pike reached the hospital at approximately 9:36 p.m. Nearly an hour had elapsed since the first call for an ambulance.
Doctors placed Pike on a ventilator. She developed pneumonia, a blood clot, and injuries affecting her arms. Her attorneys initially feared she would die.
Then her condition improved.
After several days, Pike regained consciousness. She began speaking and walking with assistance, although her recovery remained incomplete. On October 10, her attorneys announced her discharge from the hospital and return to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
The state had administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital, and Pike had survived. The medical explanation remains unresolved.
Tennessee’s execution protocol provided instructions for administering a second dose of pentobarbital following an unsuccessful first injection. The written procedure did not explain how personnel should respond if a prisoner survived both doses.
Governor Bill Lee suspended further executions pending an investigation. Correctional officials have offered no complete public explanation for the failure, while medical experts have raised questions about the drugs and intravenous administration.
Pike’s lawyers have renewed their clemency request, seeking commutation of her death sentence to life imprisonment without parole. The state has not announced whether another execution attempt will follow.
For Slemmer’s family, the failed execution has extended a case dating back to January 1995. Their daughter’s killer remains alive, and the legal proceedings surrounding her punishment continue.
For Pike, the consequences include serious physical injuries, an uncertain medical recovery, and the possibility of facing execution again. Her attorneys have questioned whether Tennessee should be permitted another attempt following the events of September 30.
The emergency recordings have introduced another set of unanswered questions. Correctional officials have yet to explain why the original caller lacked a verification code, why Central Control denied knowledge of the emergency, or why conflicting information delayed the arrival of medical personnel.
Those failures will now form part of the examination of Tennessee’s execution procedures. Investigators face the task of establishing what happened inside Riverbend, who made the decisions, and whether earlier medical intervention would have changed Pike’s condition.
The recorded exchanges also preserve an uncomfortable detail about the evening. A state government had assembled the personnel, drugs, equipment, and legal authority required to execute a prisoner. When the procedure failed, the same government struggled to arrange an ambulance.
Pike survived. The questions surrounding her treatment have only begun.
