Christa Pike, convicted of murdering a schoolmate three decades ago, survived Tennessee's effort to execute her by means of lethal injection late on Wednesday (September 30), prison officials said, foiling the state's first attempt to put a woman to death in two centuries.

“At one point... she said, my arm feels like it's about to burst open,” said Tori Gessner, a news anchor for ABC affiliate WKRN who witnessed the attempted execution. “Then she smiles really big."

Other journalists present described snoring, loud exhales and gasps from Pike. At times, the curtain was closed and journalists could only hear sounds. WPLN health reporter Catherine Sweeney said the state's protocol did not appear to address what should happen if an inmate remained alive after receiving a second dose of the sedative.

Pike's condition following the ordeal was not immediately made known, and it was not clear after she was taken for medical treatment from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville what legal avenues her lawyers or the state might pursue next.

(Production, Editing: Kokkai Ng; Writing: Steve Gorman)

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

1. NEWS CONFERENCE BY MEDIA WITNESSES AT ATTEMPTED EXECUTION OF TENNESSEE DEATH ROW INMATE, CHRISTA PIKE

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEDIA WITNESS AND NEWS ANCHOR AT ABC AFFILIATE WKRN, TORI GESSNER, SAYING:

"I will say I've witnessed, I believe, five executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical at all. And the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg. When we got inside, I think it was around 6:41 (p.m.; 2341 GMT), we got into the witness chamber. We were waiting there for almost an hour, which is unusual. Normally it's 10, 15 minutes and then things get underway. We could hear, like a little crying and whimpering at times. But when the curtains finally opened, yeah, she said her last words, which you heard, she kept them about herself."

3. PORTRAIT OF PIKE'S VICTIM, COLLEEN SLEMMER

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEDIA WITNESS AND NEWS ANCHOR AT ABC AFFILIATE WKRN, TORI GESSNER, SAYING:

"At one point at 7:34 (p.m.), she said, my arm feels like it's about to burst open. Then she smiles really big. Then she starts talking about that one spot on her arm. Does this happen like that? The one spot... I didn't hear the rest. And then her advisor says, relax. And she says, I'm trying. Yeah. She's talking throughout this, then starts breathing, moaning, snoring. The curtains close at first at 7:46 (p.m.) and she was clearly still alive. She was clearly still breathing and snoring, we could audibly hear that. The curtains open again three minutes later, she was snoring very loudly at that point, mouth open, snoring. And then the curtains closed again at 8:05 (p.m.). And that's when they remained closed."

5. VEHICLES PARKED OUTSIDE RIVERBEND MAXIMUM SECURITY INSTITUTION'S ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEDIA WITNESS AND HEALTH REPORTER AT WPLN, CATHERINE SWEENEY, SAYING:

"This is an enormous dose of a sedative that should not, ever need to happen twice. But it did. And then she stayed alive. I think one of the issues we have here is the protocol doesn't talk about what happens if you do this twice and they're still alive. I don't think that that is something that was planned for. So there was no rules about when to open the curtain after a second time. And this is pretty unprecedented. None of it should have happened and it wasn't planned for."

7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEDIA WITNESS AND HEALTH REPORTER AT WPLN, CATHERINE SWEENEY, SAYING (SOUNDBITE BEGINS AND PANS FROM SHOT OF VEHICLES PARKED OUTSIDE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING):

"And then I heard them say, bring the clergy back in, which I've never seen before, but that meant they're going to try again. So we watched that happen. And then they closed the curtain for the second time. They always close it after the five-minute waiting period after the rock comes out, and the curtain didn't open again, we just listened as they said to her, snoring and making very loud breathing sounds for almost an hour."

8. MEDIA GATHERED AROUND PORTRAITS OF SLEMMER

9. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEDIA WITNESS AND INVESTIGATIVE PRODUCER AT WBIR-TV, JOHN NORTH, WALKING TO PODIUM AND SAYING:

"Toward the end, I don't know what you guys thought, I didn't think she was in distress if you will, okay, with the breathing. I didn't. It was kind of forced, it was wheezy. We've said that. But it's not like toward the end there that she appeared to be in distress. Now, was it labored? Sure. Was it kind of snoring? Sure. And that's not what we expected. We thought it would get longer. Maybe greater amounts of time between breaths. The snoring would be louder. There were moments when it was loud and you would think, okay, maybe this is the moment when she's going to slowly stop and that didn't happen."

10. VEHICLES PARKED OUTSIDE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING