What's missing from the lethal injection conversation

In February 2025, convicted murderer Krista Pike entered the Tennessee death chamber and survived. She did not die from the pentobarbital injections meant to execute her. What many people didn't know is that before she ever went in, multiple medical experts had testified before a judge predicting exactly what would go wrong. "We predicted that she would have a protracted and painful experience just getting IVs placed," says Dr. Gail Van Norman, a physician and professor emeritus of anesthesiology and pain medicine at the University of Washington who has given expert testimony on lethal injections for years. "Because of her essential thrombocytosis and the fragility of her veins, plus the large volume of drug that they inject under pressure, I predicted that pentobarbital would likely be injected around the vein and not in the vein, which would cause agonizing pain because pentobarbital is caustic. It's like Drano being injected under the skin, but it would also cause less drug to enter the bloodstream immediately, probably making the execution prolonged and more agonizing." The only thing they did not predict, Van Norman says, is that Pike would survive.

Why lethal injection was adopted and how it actually works