New details of IV team’s attempts to find a vein shared by Pike’s lawyer ‘shocked and disturbed’ practitioners

Medical experts have expressed shock at the apparent incompetence shown by Tennessee’s execution team during the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike, the prisoner who survived a normally fatal dose of pentobarbital, which they say would be considered medical malpractice in any other setting.

New details emerged on Thursday of how Tennessee’s intravenous (IV) team struggled for almost an hour to set up a line into Pike’s arms through which she would be administered the fatal dose of sedative. A blow-by-blow account was released in legal proceedings from Pike’s lawyer, Randy Spivey, who was present inside the death chamber at her 30 September failed execution.

The technical procedures attempted by the four unidentified members of the IV team as they tried to find a vein, as described by Spivey, provoked alarm among medical experts. They said the standards applied appeared to fall glaringly short of anything that would be deemed acceptable in a medical environment.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I’m guessing no licensed doctor or nurse or medicine practitioner of any sorts would have wanted to take place in that, so they took whatever muppets they could find?

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      5 hours ago

      they dont, they have some janky "medical staff’ to do it. likely not even taken a phelbotomy course. nurses and doctors arnt going to risk thier LICENSE and reputation, they can make more money in private pratices without the potential to get blackballed.

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      17 hours ago

      No need to guess, that’s exactly what happens. No ethical medical professional participates in executions.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      There are doctors who take their Hypocritic Oath more seriously than their Hippocratic Oath

    • Taldan@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Your average phlebotomist will be far better than most doctors and nurses at putting in a line

      They easily could have found a phlebotomist who needed the extra money. This is simply incompetence. Unbelievable levels of it

      • gigaqps@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        They easily could have found a phlebotomist who needed the extra money.

        Is it actually all that easy to find medical professionals who don’t have qualms about killing people as a side gig from their day job of healing people?