Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials following her failed execution last month, according to 911 dispatch recordings.
The recordings, obtained Monday (October 12) by The Associated Press through a public records request, show that precious minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate.
“Per supervisors here at the DEC (Department of Emergency Communications) we have been informed it is a false call,” a dispatcher says at 9:03 p.m. “There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison.”
State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn’t result in death, but it doesn’t spell out what to do if an inmate survives the second injection. Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state tried to execute her for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death. Central Control confirmed the call was legitimate a few minutes later, clearing the way for responders to enter through the gates at about 9:11 p.m. An AP reporter witnessed an ambulance and fire trucks pull up to the building inside the prison campus at 9:14 p.m.
As emergency responders worked to verify the call, they were in touch with representatives of the prison’s Central Control, who said they “would have been the ones to call in and they did not make that call,” according to a recording time-stamped at 9:07 p.m.
