A US death row inmate has been hospitalised in a critical condition after surviving execution by lethal injection — Tennessee’s second botched execution this year.

Fifty-year-old Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death back in 1996 for the murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, was injected with two lethal doses of pentobarbital on 30 September but was still alive more than an hour into the execution attempt.

According to her attorneys, the execution team used at least seven needles in her left arm alone, one of which “appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt”. 

A local journalist who witnessed the event said that Ms Pike had been “very ragged” during the procedure and at one point had asked: “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open. Does this happen like that?”