By Steve Gorman
Sept 30 (Reuters) - Christa Pike, convicted of murdering a schoolmate three decades ago, survived Tennessee’s effort to execute her by means of lethal injection late on Wednesday, prison officials said, foiling the state’s first attempt to put a woman to death in two centuries.
Pike’s condition following the ordeal was not immediately made known, and it was not clear precisely what would happen after she had been taken by ambulance away from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the state capital.
“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” the agency said in a statement.
“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” the statement concluded.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Bill Berkrot and Neil Fullick)
