Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is hitting the brakes on executions after the state's attempt to put Christa Pike to death ended with Pike being transported to a hospital instead.

Lee announced late Wednesday that Tennessee's remaining scheduled execution for 2026 will not go forward while he orders a "comprehensive, third-party review" into exactly what happened inside the execution chamber.

"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective," Lee said.

"I have ordered a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred," he added. "Therefore, the remaining scheduled execution will not be carried out this year."

As RedState reported as the bizarre scene unfolded, Pike was given two rounds of pentobarbital but remained alive. Media witnesses reported that she appeared to still be breathing long after the drugs were administered, while her attorneys said she could be heard snoring.

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"She's alive and snoring," attorney Kelly Gleason told the Nashville Tennessean.

Pike's attorneys filed an emergency motion while the execution was still unfolding, and she was eventually removed from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution and transported to an off-site medical facility. Her condition was not immediately disclosed. The prison system, however, maintains that its personnel followed the rules.

"The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office," the department said afterward.

That's going to make Lee's outside review particularly interesting.

If officials followed every step of the protocol and the condemned prisoner nevertheless survived two rounds of the state's lethal-injection procedure, the obvious question becomes whether the problem lies with the execution itself, the personnel carrying it out, or the protocol they're being instructed to follow.

TDOC said the lethal-injection chemical has "consistently been effective" and that the existing protocol simply doesn't authorize additional procedures beyond what officials carried out Wednesday. Tennessee's protocol calls for a backup set of syringes if the inmate survives the first set, but it doesn't specify another lethal-drug procedure if the inmate remains alive after the backup.

It also wasn't Tennessee's first execution failure this year.

In May, the state abandoned its attempt to execute Tony Carruthers after medical personnel spent more than an hour unsuccessfully trying to establish the required IV access. Dr. Mark Fowler, who was involved in that failed execution attempt, also oversaw Pike's attempted execution, according to local reporting.

Tennessee did successfully execute Anthony Darrell Hines in August using its lethal-injection procedure, but two major failures in the same year are now more than enough to trigger an outside examination of how the state is administering capital punishment.

The immediate fallout from Pike's botched execution is the scheduled execution of Gary Wayne Sutton. Sutton had been set to die Dec. 3, but Lee's order means that execution will not happen this year.