Calls Show How Confusion Delayed Emergency Response for Christa Pike

The emergency response to Christa Pike’s botched execution last month was delayed by about half an hour, because of confusion over the authenticity of the 911 call, according to dispatch and radio calls released on Monday.

The first 911 call for an ambulance was made by someone inside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution at 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, about an hour after the lethal injections there began, according to a redacted transcript of the phone call. But confirming the legitimacy of that call took several minutes of back and forth between Nashville emergency services and officials at the prison, according to audio from eight other calls and radio traffic, which was released as part of a public records request by several news organizations, including The New York Times.

The confusion seemed widespread. The initial 911 call did not come, as it might normally, from the central control at the Tennessee Department of Correction, and the caller did not have the right security verification.

In response, dispatch workers repeatedly tried to verify the call by reaching out to prison staff and other officials at the prison during the execution.

“We are trying to find out if that is an actual thing that is happening and we need to send an ambulance,” one caller said. Or, she added, “if this is someone that is just basically prank-calling.”

It appears from the phone calls that the Department of Correction’s central control was not immediately aware of the request for help.