Botched 911 call: How the failed Christa Pike execution got worse | About That

If you're a 911 dispatch in Nashville, Tennessee, depending on who calls you, you might immediately need that person to give you a secret code so you can be sure it's a real call and not just a scam or something that's going to put first responders in danger. So when you pick up the phone and it's the Riverbend maximum security prison in Nashville on the line because their inmate on death row has just survived two execution attempts and they don't know what to do next. So you ask them, what's your code? And they reply, I'm sorry. So you ask again, what's your code? And they just don't seem to have any idea what you're talking about. So you press again, what's the code for the location? They say, I don't have a code. You don't have a verification code? I don't. If all that happens and you're 911 dispatch, even with a woman's life possibly hanging in the balance, there doesn't really seem to be a clear protocol for what exactly should happen next. And we know this because we have the audio of their subsequent phone calls. They said they don't have a code and it's for the woman that's supposed to be executed. But they said they don't have a code. So we're trying to figure out what's going on. What everybody would eventually piece together is that state officials had just tried to execute Krista Pike, a 50-year-old woman who has spent most of her life in prison for a murder she committed in 1995. But she survived the lethal injection, still breathing, but unconscious. And now they needed medical assistance. But whoever called 911 didn't seem to know the protocol. Didn't know the code. How do they not have a code? Right, they should know the code, especially at *** Um, there's nobody there that knows the process? Is it at Riverbend? Yes, at Riverbend. I forgot that, yeah, that's the one place you definitely need a code. What follows is a flurry of calls, back and forth, various departments, dispatchers, trying to confirm whether, indeed, there has been a failed execution and that person needs help. But here's where things get crazier, because after 23 minutes, the Tennessee Department of Corrections tells an emergency dispatcher, false alarm. No emergency here. I'm being told that nobody from our facility called you, so there's not really anything to speak of at the moment. Eventually, they figured it out. First responders did come. But even then, there was more delay because there wasn't a proper police escort to take them inside. You can't, after all, just waltz into a maximum security prison without protection. They won't enter without an officer on scene. So in all, it was half an hour of delays from the moment someone decided Krista Pike needs help. After her failed execution, she was on a ventilator in hospital for days. She reportedly has brain damage. And now, she's back in prison, waiting for whatever comes next.