Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is currently receiving “life-saving treatment in hospital following two failed lethal injections during a botched attempt to execute her on Wednesday night.

According to reports, Ms Pike still had a pulse and was said to be “unconscious and audibly snoring” after being administered the deadly doses, her legal team stated.

Pike 50, was now “being provided life-saving measures” in the hospital after two syringes of pentobarbital had been administered, one of her attorneys confirmed.

She was sentenced to death in 1996 for the heinous torture and murder of then 19-year-schoolmate old Colleen Slemmer. Her execution was the subject of a last-minute legal battle.

A then 18-year-old Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens.

Following a tense legal battle, the U.S. Supreme ruled in favour her death via lethal injection.

Pike was given two doses of the chemical pentobarbital, and the curtain in the witness room was closed twice, the AP news agency reported.

Tennessee’s execution protocol dictates that a second round set drug syringes in the case the person being put to death does not die after the first set. But it does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set, AP reports.