Anesthesiologist who advised Christa Pike’s defense speaks out against lethal injection
Anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot joins Bill Hemmer to discuss the legal fallout after a judge ordered Tennessee officials to preserve evidence from the botched execution of Christa Pike. Zivot, who advised Pike’s attorneys, explains the complications surrounding the lethal injection drugs used in the state’s attempt. Pike remains on death row following the failed execution attempt.
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The doctor who participated in Christa Pike’s failed execution in Tennessee says an improperly placed IV sent lethal drugs into the tissue of her arms instead of her bloodstream — and acknowledged the execution team should have stopped when the death row inmate complained of pain.
Dr. Mark Fowler, who served as the physician during Pike’s Sept. 30 execution attempt, offered a rare firsthand account of what went wrong in an interview with New York Magazine published Friday.
Pike, 50, survived after receiving two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized for days before eventually regaining consciousness.
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The doctor told the magazine he knew something was wrong when Pike’s execution stretched to about 45 minutes. When he was called into the chamber, she was still alive and gasping for air.
An execution gurney is shown alongside a Tennessee Department of Correction booking photo of death row inmate Christa Pike, whose attorneys filed an emergency motion seeking to preserve evidence after the state’s failed execution attempt. (Greg Smith/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images ; Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)
Fowler said he initially considered whether Pike’s response to the medication could simply be taking longer than expected and decided to give it more time.
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As another half-hour passed, he became concerned that Pike could survive with irreversible brain damage. Fowler later diagnosed her as comatose before a deputy commissioner ordered the execution stopped.
He then ordered oxygen, and Pike was taken by ambulance to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
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Fowler told New York Magazine that the IV used to administer the pentobarbital had not been properly inserted into Pike’s veins.
“It was delivering medicine to the subcutaneous tissue” of her arms, Fowler said.
Convicted killer Christa Gail Pike listens to proceedings on April 2008 in Knox County Criminal Court in a bid for a new trial in the 1995 killing of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
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Pike’s attorneys previously said in a court filing that she complained of severe arm pain during the execution, telling those in the chamber, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”
“They should have stopped and reassessed, and they didn’t,” Fowler told New York Magazine.
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The account comes days after Pike described the aftermath of the failed execution in a statement released by her attorneys, saying she remains in constant pain and still struggles to speak.
“My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts,” Pike said Friday. “I still struggle to speak.”
Pike also said she was “deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.”
Fowler’s role in Pike’s failed execution was not his first to draw scrutiny.
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Christa Gail Pike appears remotely from Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation for her hearing in Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tenn., on Aug. 11, 2026. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
New York Magazine reported that Fowler was also involved in the 2025 execution of Byron Black and the failed May execution of Tony Carruthers.
In the Carruthers case, Fowler attempted to place an IV near Carruthers’ clavicle after paramedics were unable to establish traditional IV access. Fowler told the magazine he ultimately stopped because he lacked adequate anesthetic and the procedure was becoming too painful for Carruthers.
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“I’m not an evil, vicious person. I’m not unscrupulous. I’m not uncaring, and I’m not incompetent,” Fowler said.
Still, Fowler said Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol needs to change.
He called for fewer handoffs among execution team members and said those responsible for placing IV lines should remain in position to monitor them as the lethal drugs are administered.
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“The people who place the IV lines should thereafter be observant about what’s happening with them as the medicine goes in,” Fowler said.
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A split image shows Christa Pike at her murder trial in 1995, left, and Colleen Slemmer, the young woman she was convicted of torturing and killing, on the right. (Reuters)
Following the failed execution, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted the state’s remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review of what went wrong.
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Lee said last week that Pike remains incarcerated under state law and signaled that her death sentence is unlikely to change.
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“I suspect her sentence will be the same as it was before unless determined otherwise by the courts,” Lee said.
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Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow participant in a federal Job Corps program in Knoxville.
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Pike’s attorneys have called on Lee to commute her death sentence to life without parole.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to Fowler and the Tennessee Department of Correction seeking additional comment and an interview but has not received a response.
