Nashville, Oct 07 (V7N)- Tennessee death row inmate Krista Pike has regained consciousness and is able to speak after surviving a failed lethal-injection execution, her lawyers said Tuesday.

The 50-year-old woman remains hospitalized in critical condition and is receiving medical treatment, according to a statement from her legal team. She is also being held in restraints while in the hospital.

Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Tennessee on Wednesday. However, the execution was halted after authorities administered two rounds of injections without successfully completing the process, after which she was taken to hospital.

Her lawyers said Pike remained unconscious for several days as doctors treated her and worked to address the effects of the drugs administered during the execution attempt.

Pike was 18 when she and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and another accomplice took 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer to a secluded wooded area in January 1995, where Slemmer was killed.

The three were students at a technical training center in Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike viewed Slemmer as a romantic rival because of her relationship with Shipp.

Pike and Shipp later confessed to the killing. In 1996, both were convicted of first-degree murder. Pike received a death sentence, while Shipp was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.

The third accomplice, Shadola Peterson, who was 18 at the time, testified for the prosecution and was later released on probation.

Pike's survival has drawn attention from legal and medical experts. Deborah Denno, a professor of criminology at Fordham Law School who studies capital punishment, said Pike's recovery had surprised her.

Denno told the BBC that several other death-row prisoners had previously survived execution attempts, but those cases involved difficulties in establishing intravenous access, meaning the execution drugs were not successfully delivered.

She said Pike's case was different because drugs had entered her body during the execution attempt, making the outcome highly unusual.

Pike's lawyers have described her survival as unprecedented and said she faces a prolonged period of medical treatment and rehabilitation. However, doctors have not indicated that a full recovery is certain, and her long-term condition remains unclear.

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