US execution survivor out of hospital, back in jail

Pike, sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, awoke "angry and confused" in the hospital this week with a long recuperation ahead after surviving the attempted execution on September 30, her lawyers said on Wednesday. They ⁠previously believed she could be brain-dead.

Pike, ‌50, ​had been taken from the execution chamber to a Nashville hospital, unconscious, ​critically ill ‌and with severe arm injuries after two injections failed to kill her ​at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

A Tennessee judge this week ordered state officials to preserve all evidence related to their failed ​attempt ​to execute her, a development ​one of her lawyers called the "first ‌of many steps to preserve and enforce her constitutional rights."

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions for the rest of the year while investigators look in to the botched execution of Pike and a similar ​failure involving Tony Carruthers in May, when prison officials were unable ​to set up intravenous ⁠lines.