UPDATE: Christa Pike Discharged from Hospital, Now Back in Prison

BREAKING: Christa Pike was released from the hospital and transferred back to prison more than a week after her botched execution in Tennessee, her attorneys said. https://t.co/Y6WyG5HyQE pic.twitter.com/s3UKWINl9r

— ABC News (@ABC) October 10, 2026

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Pike, who survived two doses of the execution drug pentobarbital Sept. 30, is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been housed for more than 30 years, according to a joint statement from her legal team.

“Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been housed for more than 30 years,” the statement read.

“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery.”

The statement was issued by attorneys Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen of Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee and Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender.

The attorneys did not disclose when Pike was discharged or whether she has recovered from complications they previously described, including pneumonia, a blood clot and injuries to her arms.

Ferrell told BBC Radio 4 Thursday that Pike had begun walking around her hospital room but continued to struggle with injuries to her arms and memory problems.

“What’s been described to me is that physically there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured, and she’s not able to use them very much,” Ferrell said. “She is up and walking for the first time today but just around the room, not very far.”

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Pike is the first person reported to have survived lethal injection after being given medications, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, whose executive director referred to the failed attempt as “the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era.”

Pike’s attorneys have called on Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Lee ordered a temporary halt to scheduled executions in the state following Pike’s botched execution and Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada announced his resignation last week.

The governor’s office said it appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct an independent review of the Tennessee Department of Correction’s execution attempt that “will seek to determine whether the protocol was followed and consider whether additional recommendations are necessary to ensure the State’s protocol continues to be lawful and effective.”

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