Chaotic 911 calls from prison released after Christa Pike’s botched execution

The 911 calls Christa Pike’s lawyers made as she survived the lethal injections given to her have been made public.

Emergency services arrived at Riverbend Prison in Tennessee confused as officials informed them it was a ‘false call’, delaying help for Pike by half an hour.

The first call came in at 8.40pm, around an hour after she received the lethal injection, but the 911 operator was unable to verify the request.

Prison workers can be heard insisting they ‘would have been the ones to call in’ and they ‘did not make that call’.

A first responder at the scene trying to enter the prison can then be heard saying: ‘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.’

One of Pike’s lawyers Kelly Gleason makes another call at 9.08pm, insisting her client needs help.

She said: ‘My client, Christa Gail Pike, is undergoing a state execution. She has completed the stages of the protocol and last we knew from the attorney who is present, she is still alive and breathing and needs immediate life-saving care.’

It took half an hour from the first call for the prison to confirm the request for help was legitimate at 9.11pm, and emergency services were eventually allowed to enter.

As they transported Pike to prison at 9.34pm, a paramedic can be heard telling the 911 operator to make sure the prison knew they were taking her.

They said: ‘Just because there’s been so much other confusion, I want to make sure they are aware of this.’

The Nashville Department of Emergency Communications released the redacted calls, except the first call which is exempt from public disclosure, two weeks after Pike survived her lethal injections.

She has since been released from hospital after making a ‘medically unprecedented’ recovery. It is not known whether Tennessee officials will try and execute her again.