Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived a failed execution in September, has spoken publicly for the first time, describing constant pain and a slow recovery as she remains scheduled to die.

"There hasn't been a moment since that night when I haven't been in pain," Pike, 50, said in a statement released through her legal team on Friday. "My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak. And the pain isn't just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul."

Pike is thought to be the only person to survive an execution attempt by lethal injection. She was discharged from hospital at the end of last month after receiving two doses of a barbiturate that left her in a critical condition, and has since been returned to the prison where she has spent the last 30 years.

What happened on the night

Pike's lawyers say the two separate doses of the lethal drug given to her on September 30 may have failed to kill her because the drug did not enter her bloodstream. Instead, according to Al Jazeera's account, it pooled in her arms, leaving them burned and blistered.

She was hospitalised and unconscious for days. Her lawyers said she suffered from pneumonia, had significant swelling on her arms and was unable to swallow. In her statement, Pike described waking up "confused and in pain" and said the incompetence that produced the outcome had hurt many people beyond her.

"I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I'm deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position," she said.

The crime and the sentence

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for low-income young people. Shipp was spared the death penalty because he was not legally an adult when the crime was committed; he remains in prison.

Pike has spent three decades on death row for the murder. The victim's mother travelled from Florida to witness the attempted execution, and Pike said she continues to think about the family and the "terrible pain and loss they have endured".

That detail matters for how the statement reads. Pike is not asking for sympathy for the crime; she is describing what the state did to her body when it tried to kill her and failed.

Why the case drew attention

Botched executions are not new, but this one produced an outcome that the machinery of capital punishment is not designed for: a prisoner who survives the process and remains under a death sentence. The case has drawn attention to the drugs, the protocols and the people who carry them out. It has also renewed scrutiny of lethal injection protocols in states that have struggled to source execution drugs, and of what happens when the process fails without killing the prisoner.

Pike's legal team has asked a federal judge to allow her to interact with other prisoners, saying her isolation after the failed execution has caused "significant psychological harm and trauma". She is being held in solitary confinement in the interim.

Her lawyers have also raised the question of what happens next, a question the law does not answer neatly. She remains scheduled to die, but the state has not announced a new execution date. Pike said she is recovering and getting stronger, but added: "Healing is not the same as being okay."

The larger argument

Tennessee is one of the states that has continued to carry out executions despite shortages of drugs and repeated legal challenges. Supporters of capital punishment argue that the sentence reflects the seriousness of the crime and that delays are the product of litigation, not principle. Opponents point to cases like this one as evidence that the process cannot be made reliable.

Both arguments are on display here. The crime was horrific and uncontested. The execution was botched in a way that left the condemned person alive, in pain and in isolation, which is the outcome no protocol anticipates.

What to watch

Three things will shape what happens next. First, whether the federal judge grants the request on conditions of confinement. Second, whether Tennessee sets a new execution date and what drug protocol it uses. Third, whether the case produces a broader review of lethal injection procedures in the state.

For readers following the legal thread, our coverage of the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a 9/11 plea challenge shows how federal courts handle high-profile cases, the ICE officer indictment in Houston is another case where a criminal justice process is being argued in public, and the Kansas ballot eligibility dispute is a reminder that procedural questions often outlast the underlying facts.

The confirmed facts are the failed execution, the statement, the injuries described by her lawyers and the fact that she remains under sentence. What the state does next is not yet known.