Christa Pike speaks out after failed execution: 'There is pain in my soul'

Christa Pike has released her first public statement since surviving a failed execution attempt in Tennessee a month ago. 

Pike released the statement to her legal team from the prison infirmary, where she’s being housed. 

What did Christa Pike say? 

What they're saying:

"There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain," she said in the statement. "My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.

Pike said she never contemplated a life beyond her execution date and was prepared to die in peace, but woke up alone and confused in a hospital bed.

RELATED: Disturbing details of Christa Pike's failed execution revealed in new court filings

"I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position," she said. "I continue to think about my victim’s family and the terrible pain and loss they have endured.

"I don’t know why I survived that night. I don’t know what comes next. Some days, finding hope is harder than others. For now, I am trying to heal, one day at a time. And I am holding on to the love and kindness of so many people who have reminded me that I am not alone."

What happened to Christa Pike? 

The backstory:

Pike, 50, was 18 years old when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. Before her failed execution last week, she was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years. 

MORE: Christa Pike latest: Tennessee prisons chief resigns after failed execution

A federal appeals court briefly paused the execution on Sept. 30 and said more time was needed to consider her lawyers’ last-ditch appeals, but the Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed after a nine-hour delay.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, declined to intervene and allow Pike to serve a life sentence.

After the state administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital, witnesses said Pike was still alive and snoring. State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn’t result in death, but it doesn’t spell out what to do if a person survives the second injection.

Pike was taken to a hospital, where she remained unconscious and on life support for several days. Before she woke up, doctors believed Pike was likely brain-dead and would be taken off life support soon.

Court documents later revealed that the IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms for nearly an hour leading up to the lethal injections. Team members struggled to push saline through the last IV site, and Pike was "wincing and grimacing" as the IV team members moved the needles around inside her left arm,

At 6:57 p.m., more than 20 minutes after they started trying to insert the needles, one team member said a vein "might be blowing."

Will the state try to execute Christa Pike again? 

What's next:

Pike has been returned to the prison’s infirmary, and it remains unclear whether Tennessee will try to execute her again. Lee has called off executions in Tennessee for the rest of the year and ordered a "comprehensive" review of what happened to Pike.

Pike’s attorneys have urged the governor to reduce her sentence to life imprisonment. Lee told reporters this week that, "I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts."

Crime and Public SafetyTennessee