{"id":25044,"date":"2026-11-01T22:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T22:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/?p=25044"},"modified":"2026-11-01T22:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T22:13:14","slug":"real-reason-doctor-who-saved-christa-pike-after-botched-execution-still-wants-her-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/?p=25044","title":{"rendered":"Real reason doctor who saved Christa Pike after botched execution still wants her dead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Christa Pike survived her execution, the doctor in the room helped bring her back. Now he has explained why he still thinks she should die.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christa Pike, Tennessee\u2019s only woman on death row, was supposed to be executed on September 30, but she survived. Dr. Mark Fowler was the doctor assigned to declare her dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to New York magazine\u2019s Intelligencer, he described what happened that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He describes sitting in a waiting room during the execution, and when he was called into the chamber, he expected to pronounce Pike dead. Instead, he says the warden told him: \u201cShe\u2019s not dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018Well, in human beings there\u2019s a spectrum of responses to medications and we\u2019ll give it a few more minutes,’\u201d he said. But the minutes passed, and Pike was still alive. Fowler began to fear she would suffer permanent brain damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He eventually found that she was in a coma. The deputy commissioner then called off the execution, and Fowler immediately started treating Pike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A doctor who won\u2019t back down<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even after working to save her, Fowler says his view hasn\u2019t changed. He believes Tennessee should go back to its old three-drug lethal injection method, which included potassium chloride, instead of the single drug, pentobarbital, that was used on Pike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also admitted mistakes were made. When Pike complained of pain in her arm, he said, \u201cthey should have stopped and reassessed, and they didn\u2019t.\u201d Still, he sees her execution as a form of justice for the mother of her victim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says he\u2019s faced backlash, but won\u2019t budge. \u201cPeople will say, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just walk away from this?\u2019 And the answer is, that\u2019s exactly what the advocates against the death penalty want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey felt that if they could humiliate me I would step back from it \u2014 because I promise you, there ain\u2019t anybody else in Tennessee going to sign up for it now \u2014 and the answer is, I cannot be pushed off a course that I find correct. I refuse to compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pike has spent more than 30 years on death row for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old who was a fellow student in the Job Corps program. On the night of the execution, she was given two doses of pentobarbital and survived both. She was rushed to hospital, where she spent five days unconscious on a ventilator. Doctors didn\u2019t expect her to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five days on a ventilator, then rehab<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Against the odds, Pike recovered and was moved to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her first statement since that night, she said the pain hasn\u2019t stopped. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a moment since that night when I haven\u2019t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also said she was \u201cdeeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee told WSMV that Pike remains in prison under state law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Christa Pike survived her execution, the doctor in the room helped bring her back. Now he has explained why he still thinks she should die. Christa Pike, Tennessee\u2019s only woman on death row, was supposed to be executed on September 30, but she survived. Dr. Mark Fowler was the doctor assigned to declare her …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25046,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25044\/revisions\/25046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}