Tennessee execution survivor Christa Pike is conscious and speaking, lawyers say

Christa ​Pike, who survived a Tennessee ‌attempt to ​execute her by lethal injection last week, has regained consciousness and is speaking, ‌her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.

Despite severe injuries to her arms, Pike, 50, is "still handcuffed and shackled to the bed," where ‌she "continues to receive critical medical care," her team of public ‌defense attorneys wrote. Pike, sentenced to death for her role in the torture-murder of a schoolmate three decades ago, survived a botched execution attempt on the night ⁠of September ​30 at ⁠Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the state capital, and has been hospitalized since ⁠then.

The episode capped a 30-year saga that began with the murder of ​a 19-year-old vocational student, Colleen Slemmer, by an emotionally troubled ⁠classmate whose punishment, her lawyers say, failed to account for her own childhood ⁠trauma ​as the victim of sexual abuse, neglect and untreated mental illness. Pike went from being the first woman Tennessee had ⁠tried to put to death in more than 200 years to becoming ⁠the ⁠first person in the United States known to have survived after execution drugs were administered.