Christa Pike unconscious and on ventilator in hospital after botched execution, attorneys say

She remains "critically ill,' her attorneys said Friday.

By Meredith Deliso, Darren Reynolds, and Jack Moore

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, remains "critically ill," unconscious and on a ventilator in a hospital, two days after a botched execution attempt, her attorneys said Friday.

"She is being treated for the serious effects of the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt, including significant injuries to both arms," her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, said in a statement on Friday.

The attorneys filed an emergency motion Friday in Davidson County Chancery Court seeking an order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all relevant evidence related to the execution attempt.

According to the motion, Pike "could be heard crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly" while being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital, at one point stating that her arm "feels like it's about to burst open." At least seven needles were used to gain IV access, with one "bent in a 90-degree angle when it was removed," it stated.

The motion described pentobarbital, a sedating medication, as being "caustic and highly alkaline" and that it "burns upon contact." Both of Pike's arms were "swollen, burned, and blistered" when she arrived at a Nashville-area hospital, the motion stated.

"Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike's life and to clear the pentobarbital from her system," the motion stated.

Pike had raised concerns about a lethal injection in the months prior to her scheduled execution, arguing that her "thrombocytosis, post traumatic stress disorder and small veins 'make it sure or very likely that there is a substantial risk that she will experience unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace,'" the motion stated.

"The filing details the serious complications that occurred during the execution attempt, many of which Christa and her attorneys had warned the State and the courts about months earlier," her attorneys said. "Preserving this evidence is essential to understanding what happened, ensuring accountability and protecting Christa’s legal rights."

The legal team for Pike -- the first woman the state planned to execute in over 200 years -- has called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence.

"The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity," Randy Spivey, an attorney with the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender, told reporters on Thursday. "Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel, and it was torturous."

"Ms. Pike was not just cooperative, but was trying to help instruct the people placing the IV lines of where she could they could find them," Spivey said. "She over and over again said, 'Please try up on my shoulder higher. Please try here. Please try here.'"

"That really was her biggest fear," Spivey added. "It was not a fear of dying. It was a fear of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death."

The governor has ordered a "third-party review" and a temporary halt to scheduled executions after the execution attempt.

"So far as we know, the Department of Correction followed exactly the protocol as outlined," the governor told reporters on Thursday. He said the state needs to know "why the outcome is different this time than ever before."

"There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen. It shouldn't have happened," Lee said. 

"The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered, and that's what this investigation is for," Lee said.

The governor said in an earlier statement that the "remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor of Tennessee, spoke out about the botched execution attempt on social media Thursday, calling on the state to bring back the electric chair.

Witnesses to the execution said late Wednesday that authorities appeared to administer two rounds of lethal pentobarbital but that the convicted murderer appeared to still be breathing an hour later when witnesses were escorted out of the chamber.

"I've witnessed five executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical -- at all," said reporter Tori Gessner with ABC Nashville affiliate WKRN, who was one of several journalists who witnessed the proceedings.

Multiple witnesses said they could hear Pike breathing and snoring very loudly after the drugs were administered, even after the curtains were closed on the execution chamber.

Glessner said when witnesses were escorted out at 8:53 p.m. local time, Pike was still heard snoring.

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Her attempted execution came after a series of last-minute legal challenges.

In an order issued earlier Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, allowed Pike's execution to proceed, granting Tennessee's request to lift a lower court's stay of execution, allowing the state to proceed with the administration of Pike's death sentence before the warrant expired at midnight local time.

The court's majority did not explain its decision, which came hours after a federal appeals court paused the execution at the 11th hour to review the capital case. The state subsequently asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the appeals court's stay.

The three liberal Supreme Court justices dissented to vacating the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit's stay of execution.

"The Court's decision to vacate that stay interferes with the Sixth Circuit's routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. "Worse, the Court grants such extraordinary relief solely to allow the State to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course in the lower courts. I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision."

In a 2-1 decision issued within two hours of the scheduled execution, Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote that a stay is necessary in the "interests of justice and the finality of Pike's impending execution" in order to review whether her allegations of sexual abuse and rape as a child were fully considered before Pike was sentenced to death. The execution was stayed "until further order of this court," the order stated.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Richard Allen Griffin called the matter "another last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution."

In an application asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay, Tennessee Department of Correction Warden Kenneth Nelsen argued that Pike is not likely to succeed because her claim was "already unsuccessfully presented." The state's "strong interest in finality and the surviving victims' right to closure" also require the high court to vacate the stay, he argued.

Members of the victim's family -- including her mother, stepfather and father -- planned to attend the execution, according to Nelsen's filing.

"It is far past time for Colleen's family to receive the closure they seek," the filing stated, asking the Supreme Court to vacate the stay of execution to "avoid rewarding Pike's abusive delay tactics" and "prevent further trauma to Colleen's family."

In a June court filing challenging her execution, Pike argued that due to her history of rape and sexual abuse, being "the lone female in a vulnerable position surrounded by male corrections officers during the last days of her life will trigger her PTSD and result in a torturous execution or mental decompensation to the point she will be incompetent to be executed."

The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected her claims. She subsequently filed an application for stay of execution, requesting that the U.S. Supreme Court review her claims alleging the method of execution would inflict cruel and unusual punishment because of her PTSD from childhood rapes and abuse. The Supreme Court denied that request on Tuesday.

Later that day, Pike filed a motion seeking to review her claim that her trial counsel provided ineffective assistance at sentencing and failed to introduce evidence of her history of child sexual abuse.

In a statement on the stay of execution, Pike's attorney, Ferrell, said, "The court has stayed this recognizing the serious concerns about Christa's scheduled execution."

In 1996, Pike was found guilty of first-degree murder for beating, torturing and killing Slemmer, a fellow Jobs Corps worker from Knoxville, in a remote area of the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus.

Pike, who was 18 when she committed the crime, had told a friend she planned to kill Slemmer because she "just felt mean that day" and admitted to committing the crime with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, according to court filings. Shipp was also convicted of first-degree murder for his role in the killing and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

While incarcerated, Pike was convicted in 2001 of attempted first-degree murder in the assault on an inmate, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.

ABC News' Michael O'Keefe, Sabina Ghebremedhin and Synai Ferrell contributed to this report.