“Where am I? Who are you?” Those were Christa Pike’s first words when she woke up in a hospital bed in Nashville, where she has been hospitalized since last week after surviving two lethal injections. The 50-year-old had been sentenced to death in Tennessee for the 1995 murder of a former classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when Pike was 18.

According to her lawyers, Pike can now speak but remains confused and angry and does not yet understand what happened on September 30, immediately after the failed double lethal injection. Her attorneys told the BBC that she has also started walking again. Lawyer Stephen Ferrell said he has not spoken directly with Pike but was informed that she moved for the first time in her hospital room, though she remained “confused.”

“On Tuesday evening I was told her condition was fairly good,” Ferrell told the BBC. “Physically she has several problems, her arms are badly injured and she cannot use them much. But today she got up and walked for the first time, only around the room and not for long.”

What will happen next for Christa Pike is still uncertain. Her case is now in uncharted territory, as she is believed to be the first person to survive an attempted execution by lethal injection. It has been called a “disaster” by Slemmer’s mother, who had been among those advocating for Pike’s death sentence.

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