Christa Pike, who survived two doses of a lethal injection drug last week during a botched execution in Tennessee, is conscious and speaking, her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ms. Pike continues to receive critical medical care at a Nashville hospital, the lawyers said. The prognosis remains unclear, they said, but they expect a long recovery.
“Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” the lawyers said.
Ms. Pike, 50, is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug. She has been hospitalized since the execution attempt on Sept. 30, after it became clear to witnesses that she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injection executions.
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Fortunately, you wouldn’t be paying for it. You pay taxes and the state decides what to do with the money. And imprisoning the few people on death row is just a drop in the bucket of what they have available.
Here’s some numbers. There’s about 50 executions in the US per year. If the annual cost of imprisoning someone is 100.000$, that’s 5 million per year. Per person in the US (say 340mio), that’s about 1.5cts. Granted, now that these people aren’t dying anymore, there’ll be more people to take care of. If they live 50 extra years, that’s 75cts each person in the US pays to keep them in the prison.