Media: Pike, who survived a failed execution attempt, has regained consciousness

Christa Pike, who survived a failed execution attempt in the U.S. state of Tennessee, has regained consciousness, PBS News reports, citing her attorneys.

According to the defense, the woman is conscious and able to speak. At the same time, her arms sustained serious damage, and she herself remains handcuffed to the bed.

"Her recovery is unprecedented from a medical standpoint. The prognosis remains unclear, but at a minimum we expect a lengthy period of recovery," the statement says.

Authorities attempted to carry out Pike's death sentence on September 30; she had been found guilty of murdering a fellow student in 1995. Shortly before the procedure, an appeals court halted the execution, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision.

Pike was administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital, but she remained alive and was taken to a hospital. According to witnesses, after the first injection the woman remained conscious and asked whether her arm was supposed to "feel like that," and after the second dose witnesses heard her snoring until her microphone was turned off.

On October 3, Pike's attorneys reported that Christa remained unconscious in critical condition and was connected to a ventilator. Both of her arms after the execution attempt were "swollen, burned and covered in blisters."

A court motion states that the drug presumably seeped into the tissue beneath the skin.

Pike, together with her boyfriend, was convicted in 1995 of murdering their fellow student, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. After the murder, the couple carved a pentagram into Slemmer's body and left other satanic (the "International Movement of Satanism" has been designated an extremist organization in Russia and banned) elements at the crime scene.

Had the sentence been carried out, she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Source: RBC