Speaking to New York magazine’s Intelligencer about the extraordinary sequence of events, Fowler recalled waiting nearby while the execution was carried out.

When he was finally called into the chamber, he assumed the procedure had been completed.

It hadn’t.

Fowler initially believed Pike might simply be responding to the medication differently than expected.

“I thought, ‘Well, in human beings there’s a spectrum of responses to medications and we’ll give it a few more minutes.’”

So they waited.

But Pike continued breathing.

The minutes passed.

Eventually, Fowler says his concern shifted dramatically.

He began worrying that she might survive but suffer permanent neurological damage.

After examining her, he determined that she was in a coma.

The deputy commissioner ultimately called off the execution.

At that moment, Fowler’s role changed completely.

The doctor who had entered the room expecting to certify a death began treating the condemned inmate instead.

Yet despite helping stabilize Pike after the failed execution, Fowler says he has not changed his position on the death penalty or Pike’s sentence.

Instead, he believes Tennessee should reconsider the way lethal injections are carried out.

According to Fowler, the state should return to its previous three-drug protocol rather than relying on pentobarbital alone.

The older method included potassium chloride as one of the drugs used during the execution process.

Fowler also acknowledged that serious mistakes were made during Pike’s attempted execution.

He specifically pointed to the moment Pike complained of pain in her arm.

“They should have stopped and reassessed, and they didn’t.”

That admission has added another layer to the controversy surrounding the execution attempt.

Pike reportedly received two doses of pentobarbital and survived both.

After the execution was stopped, she was transported to a hospital in critical condition.

She remained unconscious for five days and was placed on a ventilator.

Doctors reportedly feared she might not survive.

But Pike eventually regained consciousness.

She was later transferred to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.

Despite witnessing the failed procedure firsthand, Fowler says he continues to view Pike’s sentence as justice for the family of her victim.

He has also said that criticism directed at him since the execution attempt has only strengthened his determination not to step away.

“People will say, ‘Why don’t you just walk away from this?’ And the answer is, that’s exactly what the advocates against the death penalty want.”

He continued:

“They felt that if they could humiliate me I would step back from it — because I promise you, there ain’t anybody else in Tennessee going to sign up for it now — and the answer is, I cannot be pushed off a course that I find correct. I refuse to compromise.”

Pike has spent more than three decades on death row for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.

Slemmer, 19, was a fellow student in the Job Corps program.

The case has remained one of Tennessee’s most notorious death penalty cases, and Pike’s failed execution has now brought renewed scrutiny to both her sentence and the state’s lethal injection procedures.

The fact that Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital has raised questions about what happened inside the execution chamber, how the drugs were administered, and whether officials responded quickly enough when complications became apparent.

Fowler’s comments are particularly striking because he was not merely an outside observer.

He was physically present.

He expected to confirm Pike’s death.

Instead, he found a living prisoner whose condition had become a medical emergency.

He then helped treat the same person whose execution he still believes should eventually be carried out.

For Pike, however, the consequences of that night have continued long after she left the hospital.

In her first public statement following the execution attempt, she described ongoing pain throughout her body.

“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak.”

She also criticized the way the execution was handled.

“I am deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position.”

Her survival has now created an unusual legal and ethical situation.

An execution was attempted.

It failed.

The condemned prisoner survived.

And the doctor who helped save her afterward still believes the sentence should ultimately be completed.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has said Pike remains incarcerated under state law.

“I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”

For now, Pike remains alive and imprisoned while questions continue surrounding what happens next.

Her failed execution has intensified debate over Tennessee’s execution protocol, the use of pentobarbital, and how officials should respond when a lethal injection does not proceed as intended.

Fowler, meanwhile, remains at the center of that controversy.

He has openly acknowledged that mistakes were made.

He has described fearing that Pike could suffer permanent brain damage.

And he personally shifted from preparing to pronounce her dead to providing medical treatment.

Yet he insists those experiences did not change his underlying view.

For him, the failure was in the method and execution of the procedure—not in the sentence itself.

That position is likely to remain deeply controversial.

Because the same doctor who helped keep Christa Pike alive after the state failed to execute her now says he still believes Tennessee should ultimately try again.