‘We Are Seen as Disposable’: Rural Residents Fight a Proposed Gas Pipeline

CHATHAM COUNTY, N.C. — Despite being in one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, this rural county of roughly 85,000 people is still brimming with red foxes, coyotes, white-tailed deer, and wild turkeys.

But in recent months, Enbridge Gas North Carolina’s proposed plans for a natural gas pipeline have exposed how population growth, here and across the nation, is driving a divide between wealthy newcomers and longtime residents.

Chatham has grown into one of North Carolina’s most affluent counties, fueled by an influx of new residents in its northeastern corner. Yet the pipeline would run from Moncure to Siler City, two communities where the per capita income is roughly $25,000 a year, or about half the income typical for the region.

And it’s raising familiar concerns. A 2020 report from the Chatham County Public Health Department stated that “unjust, unfair, and uneven distribution of social and economic resources” in the county, including exposure to environmental hazards, limited people’s “ability to achieve optimal health.”

In September, the Chatham County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to oppose the project, saying that “protecting public health, safety, environmental resources, and private property rights remains a priority.” The resolution states that the proposed pipeline could affect areas occupied by vulnerable, low-income residents. Under state law, Enbridge could still attempt to take land through eminent domain, and low-income communities affected would have fewer resources available to fight back.

The state Department of Environmental Quality typically would review applications for permits to build a natural gas pipeline. That department has not yet received a permit application for the pipeline, said Onotse Omoyeni, senior press secretary for the office of Gov. Josh Stein. The North Carolina Utilities Commission declined to comment.

Enbridge says the 12-inch-diameter pipeline is needed to meet growing energy demands in the area, including Chatham, where the population has soared 21% since 2016, as well as neighboring Lee County.

Yet the proposed pipeline has set off protests at public meetings and attracted hundreds of people to a Facebook group to express their opposition, many of them small farmers, retirees, or their relatives. They argue the pipeline would pose an environmental threat to wells used for drinking water and expose people in less affluent areas to toxic pollutants that could increase the risks of cancer, preterm births, and asthma — all for the benefit of people who live nowhere near the proposed route.

“Nobody wants to be next to a pipeline,” Dorasue Burns Christian, a retired dental hygienist, told KFF Health News. She said the proposed route cuts across the roughly 22-acre farm where she has lived for more than 50 years. “I’m stressed and I can’t sleep at night. I have been pushed as far as I can be pushed.”

Enbridge Gas North Carolina is a subsidiary of the Canadian energy company Enbridge. Residents point to other communities in which Enbridge has operated — such as Marshall, Michigan; Romeoville, Illinois; and Danville, Kentucky — where oil spills and a natural gas pipeline rupture led to evacuations, injuries, and at least one death.

Enbridge declined an interview request to answer questions about the location of the North Carolina pipeline and the company’s safety record. In a statement, spokesperson Persida Montanez said the pipeline is needed to accommodate population and business growth in Chatham and neighboring Lee County.

A company website says safety will be prioritized during construction and operation, including monitoring, maintenance, and compliance with regulatory rules.

Many residents believe the company is attempting to profit from a proposed data center, which many also oppose. The company website says that Enbridge does not intend to use the pipeline for that purpose and that serving a data center would require a pipeline at least twice the size of the one planned for Chatham.

The pipeline would connect to existing natural gas infrastructure in Siler City and near Moncure, the company said.

Still, pipeline opponents say they are fed up.

“They chose this route because they probably thought people would not fight back,” said Amanda Clark, a protest organizer who grew up in Chatham. Her family roots in the county date to the 1700s. “In rural communities, we are seen as disposable.”

‘Collateral Damage’

Chatham County’s fight comes amid a construction boom in the natural gas pipeline industry and the Trump administration’s promises of “American energy dominance.”

The U.S. produces more natural gas than any other country, about as much as China, Russia, and Iran combined.

Research shows natural gas pipeline leaks are concentrated in low-income and minority communities where people experience higher rates of poverty and physical disabilities and have fewer means to respond to crises.

Nationwide, there were nearly 2,600 pipeline incidents from 2010 to 2021 that were serious enough that they were required to be reported to the federal government, including fires and explosions that killed 122 people and injured more than 600.

In 2019, one person died and six were injured in Kentucky when an Enbridge natural gas pipeline ruptured, according to a federal government report.

Enbridge reached a $177 million settlement with the federal government after the 2010 oil spills in Michigan and Illinois. In the Michigan spill, a pipeline discharged 1 million gallons of oil into Talmadge Creek, in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history.

“No Pipeline. No Compromise,” read the red T-shirts worn by some of the more than 300 people who attended a Chatham County Board of Commissioners meeting in Pittsboro, North Carolina, in early August. Outside the building, they displayed signs that said “People NOT Pipelines” and “Save Our Farms.”

More than 300 people attended a Chatham County Board of Commissioners meeting in Pittsboro, North Carolina, in early August, many wearing T-shirts to protest a proposed natural gas pipeline. Speakers said they feared the pipeline would pose an environmental threat to the community, including to farms, waterways, and wildlife. (Fred Clasen-Kelly/KFF Health News)

Under North Carolina law, private utilities and pipeline companies can obtain property easements, which give them the right of way to construct, operate, and maintain pipelines without outright taking ownership.

Enbridge will propose the final route for the pipeline based on field surveys, environmental studies, and engineering analysis, Montanez said. “The utility is also focused on delivering safe, reliable natural gas service that supports long-term economic vitality,” Montanez said.

Some residents, like Clark, argue that while the pipeline would power more housing and business development in wealthier parts of Chatham, it would create a public health risk in rural, poorer areas.

Clark, who works as the drug and injury prevention manager for the public health office in nearby Guilford County, said her great-grandparents were full-time farmers and passed down land near Siler City where her grandparents, dad, aunt, and cousin live.

Her grandfather retired from a hosiery mill and farmed part-time. He gave land to his children when they married, Clark said, because it was the only major asset he owned.

Clark said she is now in line to inherit land from her family and wants to protect the legacy of people who worked as farmers, mechanics, and schoolteachers from profit-taking by a company.

“We’re the collateral damage,” Clark said. “It makes people feel like they don’t have value.”

Enbridge Gas has promised to prioritize safety during the construction and operation of a proposed natural gas pipeline in Chatham County, North Carolina. But residents point to other communities in which Enbridge has operated — in Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky — where government reports say oil spills and a natural gas pipeline rupture led to evacuations, injuries, and at least one death. (Fred Clasen-Kelly/KFF Health News)

A Class Divide

Northern Chatham — which is an easy drive from major universities and Research Triangle Park, home to more than 250 companies — has seen a rush of newcomers.

Many have settled into places like Fearrington Village, a community with boutique shops, gardens, and homes that can cost nearly $1 million. Another master-planned community nearby, Chatham Park, is expected to bring up to tens of thousands of new residents over the next 20 years.

Not far outside the county’s borders are Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina; the state capital of Raleigh, home to North Carolina State University; and Durham, home to Duke University.

As those places have grown more crowded, Chatham has become a cheaper alternative.

But prosperity is fleeting in many parts of the county. A quarter of residents are considered low-income, and on average there are 24 candidates for every job opening, according to a report released this year by the NC Budget and Tax Center.

Christian, an 85-year-old widow who lives a few miles south of Pittsboro, spends her days on her farm, raising hay and caring for chickens, birds, dogs, and cats. She has received letters from Enbridge saying the company wants to survey her property, where she lives with her 66-year-old son, who has a disability.

Christian said she needs money to care for her son and worries that she may one day need to move to a nursing home because of declining health. She said she has been diagnosed with macular degeneration, an eye disease that blurs straight-ahead vision, making it difficult to recognize faces or read.

She had planned to make ends meet by selling multiple parcels of land, but she said potential buyers backed out once they heard about the pipeline. At the Board of Commissioners meeting in August, she pleaded for local officials to try to stop Enbridge.

“They should be ashamed of themselves,” she told KFF Health News. “It’s disheartening. They are stealing from poor people.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

from KFF Health News https://ift.tt/nQRA3eS

Read More

IIT BHU scientists develop novel green light-activated technology to fight bacterial infections

The research paper, titled "Green-light-activated Os(II) metallophotoantibiotics for antibacterial therapy and infected wound healing," presents a promising scientific approach to addressing some of the major challenges in modern healthcare, including antimicrobial resistance, persistent bacterial infections and infected wound healing.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/KIhMHmQ

Read More

FSSAI pulls up Dr Reddy's, Nestle Health Science over Celevida claims

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said the product was advertised as providing high-protein support for preserving lean muscle during GLP-1/GIP therapies, commonly used in weight-loss treatment.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/BEWsG5M

Read More

Medical Debt Is Crushing Hospital Patients in Los Angeles. Health Officials May Have a Fix.

LOS ANGELES — Every Tuesday, Naman Shah sees tuberculosis patients at a small public clinic in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Shah, a physician and epidemiologist at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, pores over images of battered lungs, listens to labored breathing, and checks medications.

It’s part of an initiative dating to the early 20th century to control infections so tuberculosis doesn’t spread. “We like doing things upstream,” Shah said, “meaning before they happen, not after the damage is done.”

Today, Shah and his colleagues are applying the same principle to medical debt. A key part of that effort is a new system to allow every hospital in Los Angeles County to easily screen patients for financial aid. The goal: to stop low-income families from getting a bill that buries them in debt.

Shah estimates this system could prevent several hundred million dollars of medical debt every year.

Vicious Cycle

Nationwide, an estimated 100 million adults have some form of healthcare debt. In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, public health officials calculate that about 800,000 residents have medical bills they can’t pay.

“The impacts of medical debt were staggering,” said Shah, who used to staff a rural health clinic in India and, since 2023, has led a county initiative in Los Angeles to tackle the debt problem.

“People end up with credit card debt and then a vicious cycle of high interest rates and poverty,” he said. “People forgo their prescriptions. People forgo appointments. And then you get into worse health.”

Hospitals typically offer financial aid to patients with low incomes. But information about assistance is often hard for patients to get. Applying can be cumbersome. And many eligible patients never seek aid, research shows.

“Most people walk into the hospital and walk out without any knowledge of financial assistance,” said Jared Walker, founder of Dollar For, a nonprofit that helps patients nationwide apply for aid, often called charity care.

That’s fueling debt. It’s also driving costly collection efforts that even hospital officials acknowledge pointlessly target low-income patients who are unlikely to be able to pay.

“They’re turning their wheels trying to collect on debt that isn’t collectable,” said Adena Tessler, regional vice president for the Hospital Association of Southern California.

Naman Shah examines a patient at Monrovia Health Center, a Los Angeles County public health clinic in Monrovia, California. Shah says reducing medical debt in the community will depend on effective prevention strategies, just as stopping the spread of infectious disease does. (Lauren Justice for KFF Health News and Tradeoffs)

  (Lauren Justice for KFF Health News and Tradeoffs)

  (Lauren Justice for KFF Health News and Tradeoffs)

Presumptive Eligibility

One potential solution is a system that automatically screens and qualifies low-income patients for financial aid without requiring an application. This is called presumptive eligibility.

Some hospitals already use such systems, which rely on software that checks patient eligibility based on publicly available information such as credit history.

The strategy can be very effective. Shah said hospitals that have deployed presumptive eligibility systems have reported as much as a 50% increase in the amount of financial aid they give patients.

Under a state law passed last year, all California hospitals will have to start doing presumptive eligibility screening by next July.

But the systems can be expensive and difficult for smaller hospitals to implement. Only about 1 in 5 hospitals in Los Angeles County currently use them, Shah said.

Public health officials wondered if they could help more hospitals set them up.

The county, which, like many local governments, faces major fiscal challenges, couldn’t pay for this, Shah said. But the public health department could bring together healthcare and hospital officials in the county to figure out another solution.

“The beauty of government is not when it always has to do the work,” Shah said. “We have the ability to make sure that people cooperate.”

The Hospital Association of Southern California, initially wary of the county initiative, came to see improving hospital financial aid programs as beneficial to hospitals, many of which were wasting money on collections. “The billing process is cumbersome and costly,” said Paul Young, a senior vice president with the association.

The association agreed to procure a presumptive eligibility system and make it available to its members. This bulk-purchasing approach, which Young compared to “a Costco model,” would lower the cost for individual hospitals, he said.

At the same time, L.A. Care, a nonprofit health plan that administers Medicaid coverage for more than 2.5 million low-income county residents, committed $2 million to set up the system.

The investment reflected the safety net insurer’s mission to make medical care accessible to more people, said Melanie Fontes Rainer, who leads strategic planning for L.A. Care. “It’s going to make Los Angeles County better,” she said.

Making It Work

Getting the new system up and running by January, as the partners hope, faces challenges.

Hospital officials are figuring out how the system will be funded in the long term. And it’s unclear how many of the county’s 88 acute care hospitals will ultimately use it, even if it’s cheaper and easier to access.

The partners are also working to improve data that the system relies on to screen patients. One goal is to link the system to tax records maintained by the state of California. This would provide hospitals with more accurate information on patients’ income than current systems, which often rely on estimated income.

Walker, the patient advocate at Dollar For, said he’s heartened by the county’s effort. “I’m optimistic that we can make a better charity care system,” he said. “And the fact that hospitals in Los Angeles County are willing to be innovative and creative about ways we can do that is super encouraging.”

For his part, Shah said county public health officials recognize that a better screening system at hospitals won’t by itself eliminate medical debt. But he said the public health department couldn’t ignore a problem that affects more county residents than asthma or tobacco use.

“Prevention is our bread and butter,” he said.

“The impacts of medical debt were staggering,” says Naman Shah, who since 2023 has led a Los Angeles County initiative to tackle the debt problem. (Lauren Justice for KFF Health News and Tradeoffs)

This article is part of “Hidden Help,” an investigative series from Tradeoffs and KFF Health News about how hospitals can protect their patients from the life-altering harms of medical debt.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

from KFF Health News https://ift.tt/wVuLRSa

Read More

WHO seeks more details from Russia about reasons for plague institute worker's death

Russia's health watchdog said on Tuesday that no cases of plague had been detected among anyone who had come into contact with the deceased worker, Darya Shipilova, and a local official said that 60% of those placed in quarantine had been released.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/cipMTo0

Read More

Food Aid Enrollment Tanks After SNAP Rule Changes

After President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act more than a year ago, enrollment in the federal food assistance program dropped rapidly across the nation as states enforced new restrictions and prepared to take on more of the costs.

Nationally, an estimated 5 million, or 13%, fewer people were enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, this June than in July 2025, when the law was enacted. Louisiana saw one of the most precipitous declines, dropping about 170,000 people, or 21% of state enrollees, according to federal data.

“We haven’t seen a decline of this magnitude in about three decades,” said Joseph Llobrera, senior director of research on food assistance at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which did the analysis.

Meanwhile, food prices rose nearly 3% from August 2025 to this August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Elected officials, policy analysts, and anti-hunger advocates are pressing Congress to delay provisions in the law that will cut federal funding for food benefits and steeply increase the cost for states. They want to insert the delay in the Farm Bill, which is pending in the Senate.

The provisions required states to start paying for 75% of the cost to operate SNAP on Oct. 1. Previously, the USDA and states split SNAP’s administration cost 50-50.

Beginning in October 2027, some states may also have to cover part of the cost of SNAP benefits that had been paid fully by the federal government. The amount that a state pays toward benefits will depend on its payment error rate, or how often it underpays or overpays enrollees. The higher the error rate, the higher the state’s share of SNAP benefit costs.

In Louisiana, the state may have to cover up to $199 million of the cost for benefits, according to an analysis by the Food Research & Action Center. Its error rate increased from 6.62% in fiscal year 2024 to 8.14% in FY 2025, the most recent data available.

Many states, including Louisiana, have placed pressure on applicants to submit more information more often to verify their eligibility to reduce the state’s payment error rate and limit how much the cost of benefits shifts to the state.

“It’s been a race to drive down those error rates,” Llobrera said.

He said the challenge of implementing new program restrictions and requiring more documentation has increased the burden on applicants and state agencies. The agencies have to process more paperwork on a tight timeline without enough staff. This can increase the likelihood of errors when processing applications, potentially leading to rejection of benefits for more people. It’s also harder for applicants to meet additional verification requirements.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act expanded work requirements for SNAP, made it harder for states to waive the work requirements, and revoked access for many noncitizens with legal status.

The Louisiana Department of Health did not respond to requests for comment.

Tia Fields, the safety net policy analyst for the nonpartisan Invest in Louisiana think tank, said the cost increase to the state has contributed to two crises: a projected shortfall in the state budget and eligible families’ losing access to help.

In Louisiana, state data shows that 75% of people who lost SNAP from July 2025 to June 2026 did so for procedural reasons. When the program’s strict deadlines for documentation and verification aren’t met, applications and renewals are closed.

Tia Fields, a policy analyst for the nonpartisan Invest in Louisiana think tank, says covering federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will contribute to a shortfall in Louisiana’s state budget. One Big Beautiful Bill Act restrictions on the program could also lead eligible families to lose access to food aid. (Christiana Botic/Verite News and CatchLight Local/Report for America)

Fields said applicants may miss forms and interviews or fail to recertify or report changes in their status. Other times, the problem is on the state’s side. Agency notices may reach applicants past the deadline due to mail delays, they may be sent to the wrong address, or caseworkers may have backlogs in processing paperwork.

“Families are still hungry, and they’re actually eligible for the program,” Fields said. “This is a tax bill that we really cannot afford.”

The additional administrative burden and the financial penalties tied to having a high payment error rate give states an incentive to deny more applications, Llobrera said.

“The pressure that states feel now to really get their error rates down is pushing states to just ask for a lot more verification and more frequently,” Llobrera said.

Anti-hunger advocates say the need for food assistance has increased as barriers to SNAP have grown.

A Steadily Increasing Need

Aaranika Macon and her son received SNAP benefits for more than three years, continuing when she began nursing school last year. But she no longer qualified when she took a job in healthcare. After three months of trying to juggle work and school, her grades started to slip and she quit the job to focus on school.

So she reapplied to SNAP in February but did not receive benefits until April.

“I’m waiting, like, two months with nothing, because I stopped working,” Macon said. “Usually when you fill out, they’ll get back with you in, like, two weeks.”

According to the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, SNAP-eligible households are required to receive benefits within 30 days of application.

Macon at her home in LaPlace, Louisiana. (Halle Parker/Verite News)

When Macon’s SNAP application was finally processed, she received less assistance than she previously did. She was deemed ineligible as a student, though she’s taking the same number of classes as she did last year when she was considered eligible. In Louisiana, higher education students are eligible for SNAP if they attend school at least half-time and meet other requirements.

Only her 11-year-old son was approved for benefits. Instead of the roughly $500 a month for two people that she received previously, she said, the $298 for her son feeds them both.

She said she had to stretch a $5 balance in her SNAP account over six days at one point this summer.

“I’m in the same position as before the job. So, why is it cut?” Macon said. “You’ve got to fight to communicate with them.”

Lindsay Hendrix, chief impact officer for Second Harvest Food Bank in southern Louisiana, said the organization has seen the need for food increase steadily for several years. Even before the passage of the SNAP changes last year, anti-hunger advocacy group Feeding America documented a 14% increase in food insecurity in Louisiana from 2022 to 2024.

“What we’re seeing is actually that more of our neighbors are coming to the food pantries longer than they used to before,” Hendrix said, and “the frequency of their visits have increased.”

Hendrix said last year’s government shutdown — which halted federal SNAP distributions and left states scrambling to fill the gap — illustrated the necessity of the food assistance program.

“Every politician was like, ‘Oh, just go to your food bank,’” Hendrix said. “And all of us working in food banks just around the country were like, ‘We will run out of food.’”

Instead, some states, including Louisiana, ensured SNAP benefits weren’t disrupted by distributing the benefits themselves until the federal government reopened and the agencies could be reimbursed. Hendrix said food banks complement SNAP and can’t compare with the scale of the program.

“We could not absorb that level of need without that program operating at its best, most effective level,” Hendrix said.

Lindsay Hendrix, chief impact officer for Second Harvest Food Bank in southern Louisiana, says food insecurity in the area has increased and that the organization has seen people visit more frequently than in past years. (Halle Parker/Verite News)

Cushion Against Higher Costs for States

Policy advocates and anti-hunger groups have been pressuring legislators in Congress to amend the latest Farm Bill or appropriations bill to delay any new costs to the states for SNAP by two years.

“We’re asking for every state to be able to have that cushion to try to get their systems in order, lower their error rate, and then give us time to reset, so that we’re not penalized for not yet having a strong enough system in place,” Fields said.

In September, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry sent a new Farm Bill to the full Senate that would give states another year before they may have to help pay for SNAP benefits. The cost would shift to — and penalties would be set in — 2028 instead of 2027. The legislation would still require states to start paying more for the cost of administering the program this year starting in October.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and other Democrats on the committee have pushed for a two-year delay.

The committee chair, Republican Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, told an Arkansas Farm Bureau podcast in September that he expects negotiations on the bill to continue in October, with the goal of having legislation that can pass the House and Senate by the end of the year.

Anti-hunger advocates say a one-year delay isn’t enough. Jordan Baker, a spokesperson for the Food Research & Action Center, said the financial strain of the impending administrative costs could eventually cause some states to opt out of SNAP altogether. Four states said they might withdraw from or pause the program if they have to start paying for benefits, according to a spring survey by the American Public Human Services Association.

Fields and Hendrix said it’s unlikely that Louisiana would completely drop SNAP. Hendrix said Louisiana’s SNAP program has been understaffed for a long time, straining the state’s ability to administer the program and do community outreach. That’s why Second Harvest’s food banks also help people with their SNAP applications. Fields said she also believes the state Department of Health is doing the best it can under a tight deadline.

“We just have to work out the kinks again,” Fields said. “That’s why we’re asking for that cost shift delay, so that the agency can have the opportunity to get it right and to keep the families fed here in Louisiana.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

from KFF Health News https://ift.tt/42mhUTM

Read More

PepsiCo, Monster, Reliance win reprieve on 'energy drink' label ban in India

The regulator in June ordered makers of high-caffeine beverages sold ​as "energy drinks" to stop using the description, rejecting the industry's efforts to stall the move in a market expected to be worth $1.6 billion by 2028.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/vX0761N

Read More

Placenta health could influence ADHD risk of child, study suggests

Researchers, including those from the US' University of Iowa, found that low levels of placental growth factor (PlGF) -- an important biomarker of placental health during pregnancy -- in the third trimester were associated with a higher risk of ADHD diagnosis in children.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/FLMQ4wE

Read More

Witnessing the Failed Execution of Christa Pike: ‘We Could All Hear Her Breathing’

On Sept. 30, I was one of the seven media witnesses who observed Tennessee fail to execute convicted murderer Christa Pike, the first woman to face the death penalty in the state in almost 200 years.

From our previous reporting, each of us had an inkling that the lethal injection process might not go according to plan. Pike’s attorneys had asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to allow her to be hanged instead, citing concerns that a platelet disorder and small veins would make the actual injection not only painful but ineffective.

And Tennessee had already botched an execution attempt in May, when healthcare workers failed to establish complete IV access into Tony Carruthers, who was sentenced to death after being convicted for his involvement in the kidnapping and murders of three people in 1994.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said after the failed execution of Carruthers, who has maintained he is innocent, that the state wouldn’t try again to kill him for at least a year. After Pike left the execution chamber in an ambulance on Sept. 30, Lee announced he would suspend lethal injections for the rest of the year.

The morning of Pike’s scheduled execution, I and the other media witnesses arrived at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville by 8:30 a.m. and waited to be ushered into the prison with nothing but our driver’s licenses in hand. The plan was to wait inside until Pike began her journey to the death chamber at 10 a.m.

But we didn’t make it that far.

Before the Department of Correction’s staffers began moving us away from the outdoor media tent and our belongings, the reporters’ phones all went off. A federal circuit court had stayed the execution. This was my fifth stint as a media witness to an execution, and I’d never seen a stay issued. We didn’t know what that would mean.

It turned out to mean waiting for nine hours at the prison, barred from leaving the grounds. We spent most of it in the boardroom where parole hearings take place.

Hours of Waiting. Then, ‘It’s a Go.’

Throughout the wait, the victim’s family often came up in conversation. In 1995, Pike, then 18 years old, killed Colleen Slemmer, who was 19. Slemmer’s family in Florida traveled to Tennessee for the execution with money raised through crowdfunding. It’s unclear where they waited while the last-minute legal wrangling played out.

Sometime around 6 p.m., the prison system’s communications director, Dorinda Carter, told us: “It’s a go.”

Tennessee had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the stay, and it did. Carter read the ruling aloud to us.

For unknown reasons, it took another hour or so for the security team to usher us into the witness bay, an all-white cinder block room with black pleather chairs in two rows and a big window overlooking the death chamber. A loudspeaker pipes sound into the room from the chamber when the microphones are on.

A black curtain hangs in front of the window inside the death chamber. Department of Correction workers open it once IV lines are inserted into the condemned prisoner.

The curtain is there to obscure the workers who place the IVs, in order to shield their identities as required by state law. That process is enshrined in the “Lethal Injection Execution Protocol,” which is the guidebook the Department of Correction writes for itself. There is no other regulation over executions in the state.

My employer, the Nashville public radio station WPLN, is a party in a lawsuit challenging the state’s concealment of the IV insertion. When executions are botched, it’s often due to something going wrong while IVs are placed — or with the subsequent step if IVs fail, placing a central line in a deeper vein through the chest, neck, or groin.

A lower court ruled in favor of WPLN and other media plaintiffs in January, but the state appealed the order, and it has been halted while higher courts consider the case.

The Death Chamber

The American Medical Association officially bars doctors from participating in executions, and many other health professionals also consider assisting an execution to be unethical.

Outside of prison staffers and the execution team, only the prisoner’s spiritual adviser and attorney are allowed in the room with the prisoner while the IVs are inserted. So generally, attorneys’ descriptions are the only account of the procedure.

Under normal circumstances, witnesses sit in the bay for 10 or 15 minutes with the curtain closed. That’s how long it tends to take for the IV team to place a line and start running saline, to prepare for the 5 grams of the sedative pentobarbital that will be pumped in to kill the prisoner.

Once the lines are set, the execution team enters an adjacent, concealed room. The IV lines run through the wall into that hidden chamber, from which the drugs are administered.

But at Pike’s execution, we sat in the bay for 45 minutes with the curtain closed and the microphone turned off.

Until Carruthers’ failed execution, the Department of Correction kept the lights off in the witness bay during the wait. Witnesses at his execution said they sat in a dark room for an hour and a half as the execution team tried and failed to place an IV line. This time, the prison kept the lights on.

The clock we use to give a minute-by-minute account is in the death chamber, so we can’t see it with the curtain closed. John North, a reporter with the television station WBIR in Knoxville, was the only witness wearing a watch. The rest of us asked him over and over what time it was.

After half an hour, it was clear the IV team must have been struggling.

We wondered whether Pike’s execution would unfold similarly to Carruthers’. That time, the governor called and ordered the execution halted before the curtain ever opened.

But at 7:27 p.m., we heard the curtain being drawn away.

We saw Pike in profile, lying on the gurney, facing the window for the other bay, where the victim’s family and prosecutors sit.

We saw Pike’s spiritual adviser, Mikey Noechel, who wore a wine-red sash over his suit. Together, they sang and talked about Buddhist teachings. 

Under the state’s protocol, the spiritual adviser is allowed in the death chamber as the pentobarbital flow begins, though the attorneys are not.

There is no signal when the lethal drugs start flowing, but it’s assumed to begin after the prisoner delivers her final words. It’s typical for the spiritual adviser to offer prayers and other support, and for there to be a back-and-forth between the two.

Pike spoke.

“I just want to say that I’m going to leave this world the way I’ve spent most of my life, and that is with love,” she said.

She said that she had love for those who hate her, and that she was at peace with her death.

Moments later, Pike told Noechel her arm was burning. She said it was in one specific spot and asked corrections staff in the room whether that was normal.

Pentobarbital is alkaline, so it burns like drain cleaner if it touches skin. If the IV is administered correctly, that is unlikely to happen.

But Pike and Noechel chatted for what seemed a shocking amount of time. Prisoners tend to show signs of being sedated a few minutes in. Pike didn’t.

Something Is Wrong

The Tennessee Department of Correction uses an odd practice to announce the drugs have been fully administered. There’s a small, hinged door built into the wall between the concealed drug management room and the death chamber, with a platform beneath it. Once the drugs have completely flowed through the IV, the door is opened and a rock is placed on the platform. That initiates a five-minute waiting period, after which the curtain closes again to obscure a doctor, who enters the death chamber, checks the prisoner’s pulse, and certifies the death.

In each of the executions I’ve witnessed, the prisoners look unconscious long before the rock comes out, and in the minutes following they’re presumed dead.

The rock came out at 7:41 p.m. At 7:44 p.m., Pike was still speaking quietly to Noechel.

My jaw dropped. It was clear to me then that something was very wrong.

Once the five minutes are up and the curtain closes to conceal the doctor, who confirms the time of death, the spiritual adviser moves into the witness bay and stays there until everyone leaves the facility.

But after Noechel entered the witness bay, staff came in and ordered him back into the death chamber. There was only one reason to do so: They were trying again.

The curtain reopened.

The state’s protocol dictates that, as a backup plan, prison staff can run a second round of pentobarbital. According to a statement from the Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks execution attempts and their outcomes, Pike is “the first person to survive after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs.”

Eventually, Pike stopped talking. She started snoring.

She continued to snore after the rock was put out the second time and the curtain closed again. We continued to hear her snore over the loudspeaker.

The state’s protocol does not contemplate a second round of drugs failing to kill the prisoner, so there are essentially no rules for the situation the Department of Correction found itself in with Pike.

It’s unclear what was happening behind the curtain. Her lawyers later said they weren’t allowed in the death chamber.

The curtain closed at 8:16 p.m., and we listened to Pike’s snoring for nearly 40 minutes.

Tensions rose between the media witnesses and Carter, the Department of Correction’s communications director. I asked her: “Do they do a third round? Are you going to resuscitate her?” Carter didn’t have an answer. Another witness, Steven Hale of the Nashville Banner, asked why the curtain was closed. The doctor wasn’t certifying Pike’s death. We could all hear her breathing.

At 8:53 p.m., the prison warden, Kenneth Nelsen, came over the loudspeaker and said, “Media witnesses, please exit the area.”

‘Intubated, on a Ventilator’

We went out to the news conference, which the Department of Correction usually requires media witnesses to participate in. While one of us was speaking, several emergency vehicles arrived. We saw the caravan leave with its sirens on. That was our only insight into whether Pike was alive.

Pike’s attorneys later confirmed she was hospitalized. As of Oct. 1 she remained in critical condition at an undisclosed Nashville hospital, according to her attorneys.

Her lawyers, in an emergency filing with the Davidson County Chancery Court on Oct. 2, alleged that the execution team apparently didn’t “realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown” and that pentobarbital had “in whole or in part” entered her body instead of her veins.

Pike arrived at the hospital with both of her arms “swollen, burned, and blistered,” they wrote. “She is intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious.”

Pike’s future, as well as that of lethal injection in Tennessee, is uncertain.

Lee, the Republican governor who has paused executions for the rest of the year, leaves office in January. The front-runner in the Nov. 3 election to replace him, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, has been a vocal supporter of the death penalty. After Pike’s failed execution, the Republican candidate posted her solution to X.

“Bring back the electric chair and deliver justice for these victims swiftly,” she wrote. “As your governor, I will do just that.”

The electric chair was last used in the U.S. in Nashville when Tennessee executed Nicholas Sutton in 2020. He was one of five prisoners who chose the electric chair over lethal injection in the state from 2018 to 2020.

This article is from a partnership that includes WPLN, NPR, and KFF Health News.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

from KFF Health News https://ift.tt/iSfCacj

Read More

KKR-owned Healthium, Temasek-backed Romsons in race to buy 70-80% stake in BL Lifesciences

The company is likely to be valued ₹1,800-2,000 crore, the people said. KPMG is advising the promoters on the stake sale. BL Lifesciences, a fourth-generation family-owned business, primarily focuses on products for cardiac surgery, critical care, interventional cardiology, anaesthesia and surgical care.

from Top Health News | Latest Healthcare Sector & Healthcare Industry news, Information and Updates: ET HealthWorld : ETHealthworld.com https://ift.tt/4q6LtaF

Read More