Christa Pike began speaking a day after her legal team understood that life support would be withdrawn, her lawyer has said.
The Tennessee death row prisoner, 50, regained consciousness on October 6, almost a week after surviving an attempted execution by lethal injection.
Speaking outside a Nashville courthouse on October 7, attorney Randy Spivey said he had understood the previous evening that Christa was brain dead.
"But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, Christa woke up and began talking," he said.
© Alamy Live News.What her lawyer has revealed
Randy said he had been told that Christa's first questions after waking included: "Where am I?"
He explained that he was not present when she regained consciousness. According to his account, she is aware of the execution attempt but remains confused about aspects of what happened.
Christa continues to face significant health problems, including pneumonia, a blood clot and difficulty swallowing, her legal team said. Her lawyers had announced her return to consciousness in a statement on October 6, while emphasising that her prognosis remained uncertain.
They also reported serious injuries to her arms and said she remained restrained in her hospital bed while receiving critical care. Those details were attributed to the legal team and had not been independently verified by local broadcaster WZTV.
What is known about the brain-death claim
The description of Christa as brain dead comes from her lawyer's account of what he understood. The reporting does not establish that doctors completed a formal brain-death determination.
That distinction matters. According to the American Academy of Neurology, brain death means the complete and permanent loss of brain function following catastrophic injury. It is different from a coma.
Cleveland Clinic explains that people do not recover from brain death. Medical guidelines also require clinicians to exclude factors, including the effects of sedating drugs, that could interfere with an assessment.
Christa's reported return to consciousness should therefore not be described as recovery from confirmed brain death.
© Alamy Live News.What happened during the execution attempt?
Tennessee attempted to execute Christa on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Associated Press journalists who witnessed the procedure reported that she continued breathing after two injections and complained that her arm hurt. She was subsequently taken to hospital.
Frank Strada, the head of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, resigned on Saturday following the botched execution.
Christa was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student. Christa was 18 when she committed the crime and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
© Sony Pictures via Getty ImagesJudge orders evidence to be preserved
At the October 7 hearing, Judge I'Ashea Myles ordered prison officials to preserve evidence connected to the failed execution.
"Anything in the actual room needs to be preserved and maintained," she said.
The order covers materials including medical equipment, records and communications. The judge also directed officials to respond promptly to requests from Pike's lawyers to visit her.
The Tennessee Attorney General's Office argued that a court order was unnecessary because evidence had already been collected and logged.
Governor Bill Lee has ordered an external review and postponed the state's other execution scheduled for this year. Investigators have yet to establish publicly exactly what went wrong.
What happens next?
Christa's longer-term medical outlook remains uncertain, and no decision on another execution attempt was announced at the hearing.
Assistant Attorney General John Ayers said the question of whether and when to set a new execution date would be for the Tennessee Supreme Court. Christa remains in hospital while her lawyers seek access to the evidence surrounding the September 30 procedure.
