‘Where Am I?’: Christa Pike Wakes Up After Failed Execution as Judge Orders Tennessee to Preserve Evidence

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived the state’s attempt to execute her, woke up in a hospital on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. Her first words were “Where am I and who are you?” according to her attorney Randy Spivey, who said he was not in the room at the time, USA TODAY and NBC News reported.

A day later, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, a judge in Nashville ordered the state to preserve evidence from the failed execution, including the drugs, IV lines, needles and medical supplies used that night, according to CBS News and NBC News.

What happened on Sept. 30, 2026

Tennessee tried to execute Pike, 50, by lethal injection on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, 19. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing, CBS News and NBC News reported. She had been set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, as Max Crime reported before the execution date.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was taken to a hospital. She is believed to be the first person in the U.S. to survive after receiving execution drugs, according to USA TODAY and CBS News.

Her attorneys have said they believe her IV lines were improperly placed or a vein had blown, sending the drug into her arm rather than her bloodstream, USA TODAY and CBS News reported.

From ‘brain dead’ to awake

Speaking to reporters on Oct. 7, 2026, Spivey said he had been told Pike was brain dead on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026, and that life support was to be removed the next day. Instead, she woke up on Tuesday and began talking. “I don’t have an explanation for what happened,” he said, according to CBS News.

Spivey said Pike is “angry and confused,” USA TODAY and NBC News reported.

Her recovery is far from over. Spivey said she has pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm, cannot swallow, and cannot move her badly swollen arms, according to CBS News, NBC News and USA TODAY.

The court order

Chancellor I’Ashea Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court granted the request from Pike’s attorneys. Besides physical items, the order covers written records and witness accounts, and Myles said that if anything had already been discarded, the state must try to claw it back, CBS News and NBC News reported.

Pike’s attorney Luke Ihnen told the court the state has made no promise that Pike will not face another execution attempt, and that the evidence would matter for any future challenge, according to CBS News and NBC News.

A lawyer for the state told the judge that, as of the Oct. 7, 2026, hearing, there was no indication Pike faced another execution attempt, Scripps News and USA TODAY reported.

Calls for clemency

Pike’s attorneys are asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Scripps News, CBS News and USA TODAY.

After the failed execution, Lee ordered a review of what went wrong, called off the only other execution scheduled in Tennessee for the rest of 2026, and announced that Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada would step down, USA TODAY and CBS News reported.

Pike’s was Tennessee’s second failed lethal injection of 2026. Earlier in the year, the state halted Tony Carruthers’ execution when staff could not set an IV line, according to NBC News and USA TODAY.