In the US state of Tennessee, Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada has resigned following the botched execution of inmate Christa Pike, who survived a lethal injection, infohub.kz reports.

Governor Bill Lee announced the official's departure on October 3. Strada will leave his post within October. The governor ordered an independent review of the circumstances of the failed execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The name of the interim department head will be announced later.

Strada himself said he believed staff followed the established protocol. He added that his resignation "serves the best interests of Tennesseans as the independent review moves forward."

Pike, 50 — the only woman on Tennessee's death row — was scheduled to be executed late on September 30, 30 years after her death sentence. She was to become the first woman executed in the state in more than 200 years.

According to journalists present, prison staff administered two doses of pentobarbital, but she continued to breathe and snore. During the procedure, Pike moaned and convulsed, throwing off a sheet. The curtain was then closed to witnesses.

Her lawyers urgently appealed to a federal court to halt the execution. The procedure was stopped, and the woman was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

On Friday, the defense said Pike remains unconscious and is on a ventilator. According to her lawyers, doctors are fighting for her life and trying to clear the drug from her system.

The defense claims medical professionals had warned in advance about difficulties placing intravenous catheters due to Pike's small veins and a blood disorder. Her lawyers believe prison staff ignored those warnings. The exact cause of the execution's failure remains to be determined.

The department said staff followed instructions, but the protocol does not provide for what to do if a lethal injection fails. In May, Tennessee already called off the execution of a male inmate after medics could not place a catheter in his vein.

In 1996, Christa Pike, then 18, was sentenced to death for the murder of her friend, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. The two young women were students at a Job Corps training center in Knoxville. Pike believed Colleen was trying to take her boyfriend.

Pike, along with her boyfriend and an acquaintance, led the victim to a secluded spot. Colleen was beaten by the group; she tried to run several times but could not break free. In the end, Pike struck her on the head with a piece of asphalt.

After the murder, Pike took a fragment of Colleen's skull and showed it to other students.

Her boyfriend was 17 at the time of the crime. He received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Only Pike was sentenced to death.

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