'We could all hear her breathing': Witnessing the failed execution of Christa Pike

Public radio reporter Catherine Sweeney, one of the media witnesses, recounts the moments before the execution of Christa Pike was halted last Wednesday, Sept. 30. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) Flanking the podium are two photos of Colleen Slemmer, Pike's victim in the 1995 murder. George Walker IV/AP hide caption

Last week, I was one of the seven media witnesses who observed Tennessee fail to execute convicted murderer Christa Pike, the first woman to face the death penalty in the state in almost 200 years.

This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News .

From our previous reporting , each of us had an inkling that the lethal injection process might not go according to plan.

Pike's attorneys had asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to allow her to be hanged instead , citing concerns that a platelet disorder and small veins would make the actual injection not only painful but ineffective.

And Tennessee had already botched an execution attempt in May, when healthcare workers failed to establish complete IV access into Tony Carruthers, who was sentenced to death after being convicted for his involvement in the kidnapping and murders of three people in 1994.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said after the failed execution of Carruthers, who has maintained he is innocent, the state wouldn't try again to kill him for at least a year. After Pike left the execution chamber in an ambulance on Sept. 30, Lee announced he would suspend lethal injections for the rest of the year.

The morning of Pike's scheduled execution, I and the other media witnesses arrived at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville by 8:30 a.m. and waited to be ushered into the prison with nothing but our driver's licenses in hand. The plan was to wait inside until Pike began her journey to the death chamber at 10 a.m.