MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A woman in Tennessee was supposed to be executed last night, but after two lethal injections, she was still alive. The execution was halted. Tony Gonzalez is the news director of WPLN in Nashville, and he joins us now to tell us what happened. Tony, good morning.
TONY GONZALEZ, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning.
MARTIN: So what happened last night?
GONZALEZ: Well, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike. She is 50 years old and was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer when both were teenagers in Knoxville, Tennessee. But even before the problems at night, the entire day was abnormal. The execution was scheduled for the morning, but it was temporarily halted by a court order. It took about nine hours for that to be sorted out. The U.S. Supreme Court gave officials the go-ahead.
In the nighttime, the state gave two doses of the drug pentobarbital to Pike. But there in the death chamber, we had our health reporter Catherine Sweeney. She was a media witness. She and others described Pike as actually still talking after the first dose. She asked questions about the feeling in her arm. And after the second dose, she was heard snoring. So breathing and snoring for more than 20 minutes. Much of that all happened behind a closed curtain, and then officials moved the media witnesses out. They later confirmed that Pike was taken by ambulance to a medical facility.
MARTIN: So what are officials saying about what happened?
GONZALEZ: Well, we have kind of two main messages. One, the Tennessee Department of Correction says that its team, quote, "followed every step in the protocol." They're also standing by the drug that they use. But what was unusual, the protocol that the state uses, doesn't actually consider what happens if the person is still alive after two doses. So that's when they stopped the attempt.
Tennessee's governor is Bill Lee, and he has ordered a third-party review. He also canceled the other execution that was scheduled for later this year in Tennessee. The governor says that people are owed a legal, constitutional and effective method for carrying out the death penalty.
MARTIN: Now, Tennessee has had problems with executions in the past. It's my understanding that one was halted earlier this year as well. Is that correct?
GONZALEZ: That - that's right. So back in May, the state had a different problem with an execution. At that time, medical staff could not access the veins of a man named Tony Carruthers. In that situation, it escalated to them attempting to place what's known as a central line. That's a more invasive procedure to try to reach a vein. Eventually, the governor halted that execution that day.
And then that triggered calls to review the state's procedure. In fact, there were bipartisan calls. The governor did not decide to review the protocol at that point. Now he has. And, in fact, this is the second time during the governor's tenure that he has ordered a review of lethal injections. He previously delayed executions for a couple of years. An investigation found that the state was not following its own protocol, had mishandled the lethal drugs. So there have been concerns, and now there are these additional problems.
MARTIN: And what is next for Christa Gail Pike?
GONZALEZ: We don't totally know. After surviving those doses, she was taken to a hospital. Officials actually have not said where she was taken. You know, after that botched execution in May, the governor gave that man a one-year reprieve. It's unclear if something similar would happen here, especially now that there's going to be an investigation.
MARTIN: Very traumatic for everybody involved. That's Tony Gonzalez, news director for WPLN News in Nashville. Tony, thanks.
GONZALEZ: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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