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.

New account from Pike’s lawyer suggests team was racked by doubts even before pentobarbital began to flow

The Tennessee execution team tasked with setting an intravenous line in the arms of the death row prisoner Christa Pike through which she could be injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital repeatedly warned that her vein might be “blowing”, before they went ahead with the procedure, her lawyer has revealed.

Members of the intravenous (IV) team used up to 10 needles as they sought to establish a line through which Pike could be killed with a massive dose of the sedative. About 20 minutes into the attempt, they began discussing among themselves whether the prisoner’s vein “might be blowing”.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was a house framer before he was killed by ICE agents. Countless other Latino builders in Texas live in fear of a similar fate

Every morning long before dawn, while America sleeps, legions of Texas construction workers grab their fluorescent vests and hard hats, sling ladders and tools into their trucks, and head down the highway for another day of grueling labour under the blistering sun.

Elsewhere, before the first flush of daylight settles over Texas’s concrete sprawl, a separate army gets on the move in a fleet of shiny unmarked SUVs. They hover at gas stations, prowl around bodegas, pounce on the highways.