&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Tennessee woman survives two lethal injections: How does it work and how often do executions go wrong?")
A Tennessee woman convicted of murder survived two attempts to execute her by lethal injection, forcing the state to halt its remaining scheduled execution this year.
Christa Pike, 50, was set to become the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years. The US Supreme Court cleared the way for her execution on Wednesday, but the attempt failed.
Pike survived two doses of the lethal injection and was later taken to an off-site medical facility, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Her lawyers said she was taken to a nearby hospital but that they had not been informed about her condition.
"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," Pike's attorneys said in a statement.
Tennessee halts execution after two failures
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The failed execution came months after another lethal injection attempt was stopped in Tennessee.
In May, the state halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after medical staff were unable to find a vein to administer the drugs.
After Pike's failed execution, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee called for a "comprehensive, third-party review" of the state's execution process.
"The remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year," Lee said. The statement appeared to refer to the execution of convicted killer Gary Wayne Sutton, which was scheduled for December 3.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, described Pike's execution attempt as an unprecedented failure.
"This event is the worst we've seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era," Maher told The New York Times. "There is no precedent."
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol" before Pike was taken to the medical facility.
What is pentobarbital and how does lethal injection work?
Pentobarbital is a barbiturate and anaesthetic used in lethal injection procedures in several US states, including Tennessee. The drug is meant to make a prisoner unconscious. The process is then intended to cause paralysis and cardiac arrest, leading to death.
Some states use a combination of three drugs for lethal injections, while others use pentobarbital as the only drug.
Lethal injection is the main method used for executions in the US. It is used by the federal government, the US military and 31 states that allow the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Centre, the US has carried out 1,492 executions through lethal injection since 1976.
Obtaining drugs used in executions has become increasingly difficult because drug manufacturers have resisted supplying them.
As a result, some states have started using different drugs and drug combinations. This has led to some prolonged executions in which prisoners showed signs of pain and distress.
Some states have also obtained drugs from compounding pharmacies that are not regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration.
How often do executions go wrong?
According to Al Jazeera, Austin Sarat examined executions in the US between 1890 and 2010 in his 2014 book Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty.
Sarat found that 276 of the 8,776 executions during that period went wrong in some way. That was about 3.15 per cent of all executions.
He also found that lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions during that period, at 7.2 per cent.
