A woman who survived a failed execution in Tennessee nearly lost her life a second time when doctors considered switching off her life support.

Christa Pike (50) woke up on Tuesday morning, days after prison officials tried to execute her with two doses of pentobarbatal. Her lawyer Randy Spivey told reporters the development shocked everyone.

“On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead, and that life support would be removed the next day,” Spivey said. “But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, Christa woke up and began talking.”

Pike now lies shackled to her hospital bed. She can speak a little but cannot swallow or move her arms. Both arms and hands remain badly swollen.

Memory loss and confusion

The convicted killer has no memory of what happened during the execution attempt, according to anesthesiologist Joel Zivot who worked with her legal team. Pike knows her name but thinks the date is September.

“I think she is angry and confused about everything right now,” Spivey said. “She is very aware of what they did to her – up to a point.”

Medical staff asked prison authorities to remove the shackles but officials denied the request, Pike’s lawyer Luke Ihnen told a court hearing.

“We have to ask how much suffering is enough? We continue to ask Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute Christa’s death sentence” to life in prison, Spivey said.

Court orders evidence preserved

A court has ordered state corrections officials to preserve all evidence from the botched execution. This includes medical supplies, waste, and all audio and video recordings.

Pike was 18 years old when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer (19) at a job training camp. She would have become the first woman Tennessee executed in more than 200 years.

Governor Lee suspended all executions in the state while investigators look into what went wrong. The state’s prison chief resigned. Tennessee’s correction department says it followed the correct procedures.

Texas carries out execution hours later

Texas executed a man by lethal injection on Wednesday night, marking the first US execution since Pike’s failed attempt.

Jamaal Howard (46) died at 8:03 pm local time after receiving a lethal injection for killing a store clerk during a robbery in 2000. His lawyers tried to postpone the execution, citing Pike’s case, but failed.

“I’m sorry for what happened, I wish you could learn to forgive me one of these days,” Howard said before he died.

ALSO READ: Woman who survived failed US execution, now conscious and talking

First to survive lethal injection

The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first inmate to survive after receiving lethal doses of execution drugs.

So far this year, 29 people have been executed in the United States, not counting Pike’s failed execution. All used lethal injection.

Twenty-three of the 50 US states have abolished the death penalty. California, Oregon and Pennsylvania have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump approved the execution of Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded more than two dozen at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. The Pentagon says Hasan will face a firing squad on 3 December, which would mark the first military execution since 1961.

ALSO READ: WATCH | Botched lethal injection leaves Pike on ventilator