BREAKING: “I’ve witnessed, I believe, 5 executions in Tennessee. Nothing about today was normal, typical at all.” Shocking new details emerge from the failed attempt to execute Christa Pike, the 50-year-old inmate who has spent nearly 30 years on Tennessee’s death row. At a news conference following the attempted execution, media witnesses are now revealing more about what Pike was saying and what they heard as the process unfolded. “The vein in my arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” Pike told her spiritual adviser during the process. Officials administered two syringes of pentobarbital, but Pike still had a heartbeat and was snoring after receiving the drugs, according to an emergency court filing from her attorneys. One witness described the sound as if Pike was “almost choking.” “She was clearly still alive. She was clearly still breathing.” The curtains inside the execution chamber went down twice as the process unfolded, and Tennessee officials ultimately were unable to complete the execution. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 at the time of the killing. ▻