Christa Pike was supposed to be executed in Tennessee on September 30 after spending about 30 years on death row, but the procedure took an unexpected and disturbing turn. Pike, 50, had been sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, and her execution was delayed earlier that day after a federal appeals court temporarily intervened. The U.S. Supreme Court later cleared the way for Tennessee officials to proceed. Before the injections began, Pike delivered an emotional final statement, saying she intended to leave the world with love and that she was “at peace” and ready to be free. But shortly after the first dose was administered, witnesses reported that Pike began describing what she was experiencing. At about 7:34 p.m., WKRN reporter Tori Gessner said Pike complained, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”

The moment quickly became a central part of witness accounts as Pike reportedly asked her spiritual adviser, Rev. Mikey Noechel, “Does it happen like that?” He told her to relax, and she replied, “I’m trying.” Witness Will Puckett later said Pike continued blinking, smiling and even laughing during the process before a tear appeared in her right eye. She also reportedly said that “one spot is really throbbing.” As the procedure continued, witnesses described Pike taking deeper breaths, lifting her head and repeatedly moving her feet beneath the sheet. Despite two rounds of lethal injection, she was not pronounced dead and was eventually taken from the prison by ambulance to an outside medical facility. One of her attorneys said she was receiving life-saving measures. The Tennessee Department of Correction said officials followed the state’s approved execution protocol and that no additional procedures were permitted under the protocol. If successful, the execution would have made Pike the first woman executed by Tennessee in 200 years.