Tennessee execution team members failed multiple times to establish working IV lines in Christa Pike's arms before her attempted execution and warned that some of her veins may have "blown," before she was injected with pentobarbital, according to a court document.
The IV team went through about 10 needles and tried several IV sites on both arms, lawyer Randy Spivey wrote in the document.
The team struggled to push saline through the last IV site they established, Spivey wrote.
Pike, 50, was hospitalised after surviving two doses of pentobarbital as the US state of Tennessee tried to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she tortured and killed Slemmer with her boyfriend, becoming one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death.
State protocol calls for a second dose of pentobarbital if the first doesn't result in death, but it doesn't spell out what to do if a person survives the second injection.
After being taken to a hospital, Pike was on a ventilator for several days. At one point, her lawyers did not expect her to survive. She ultimately regained consciousness and returned to prison after being discharged.
The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.
Australian Associated Press