911 confusion delayed aid for Christa Pike by about 30 minutes
What's new: dispatch recordings show responders were twice told the call might be false before prison officials cleared them through the gate.
Emergency help for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike was delayed by roughly half an hour after her failed Sept. 30 execution because dispatchers and prison officials struggled to verify a 911 call from the execution chamber. Recordings released to media show the first call came at 8:40 p.m., but prison officials did not confirm it was legitimate until 9:11 p.m. During the delay, one caller told responders the request was a “false call,” while another reported a state official at the gate insisting the emergency was real. Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during an execution for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer and was hospitalized before being returned to prison.