Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed over confusion after botched execution, 911 calls reveal

Emergency help for Christa Pike was delayed by confusion among first responders and Tennessee prison officials following her failed lethal injection last month, according to 911 dispatch recordings released Monday.

The recordings, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that precious minutes elapsed as officials and responders tried to figure out whether a request for emergency help in the execution chamber was legitimate. The first call came in at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30. 

"We've been carrying out an execution tonight. We've administered 10 grams of pentobarbital. The person is not yet deceased. That started approximately 1 hour ago. And we're calling for an ambulance," the caller told the dispatcher, according to a transcript released by the Nashville Department of Emergency Communications.

The dispatcher asked the caller for a verification code, which the caller did not have.

The DEC released several other calls between the agency and Nashville Fire Department, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, Tennessee Highway Patrol Dispatch and Tennessee Department of Correction Central Control as it attempted to confirm the emergency at Riverbend Prison.

It was about half an hour before prison officials affirmed it was legitimate and began letting responders through the prison gates.

"Per supervisors here at the DEC (Department of Emergency Communications) we have been informed it is a false call," one unidentified person says at 9:03 p.m. "There is no medical assistance needed at Riverbend Prison."

Four minutes later, a responder reported: "Somebody is outside the gate at the prison telling us that it's real and demanding us to go in. They say they are some sort of state official. I need somebody to get out to the gate and talk to those people."

As emergency responders worked to verify the call, they were in touch with representatives of the prison's Central Control, who said they "would have been the ones to call in and they did not make that call," according to a recording time-stamped at 9:07 p.m.

A few minutes later, Central Control confirmed the call was legitimate and cleared the way for responders to enter at 9:11 p.m.

CBS News has reached out to the Tennessee Department of Correction for comment.

Pike, 50, was hospitalized after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. At one point, Pike was on a ventilator and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. However, they said Pike woke up and began talking and walking with assistance, and she has since been discharged and is back at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women's prison where she was housed for 30 years.

Pike is the only person known to have survived an execution attempt in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong in the attempted execution. Medical and lethal injection experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.

Pike's execution was allowed to move forward after the Supreme Court denied a last-minute effort to halt it. She was set to be the first woman executed in the state since 1820. 

It's still unclear what will happen with Pike moving forward.