An Idaho death row inmate by the name of Thomas Eugene Creech, dodged his fate when his executioners made as many as eight attempts in just under an hour to give him a lethal injection—and failed.
Knewz.com has learned that Creech, who would have been the first Idaho inmate to be executed in 12 years claims he now has nightmares and chest pains.
The 73-year-old – who has been in jail since 1976 for murdering five people – claims that after the incident he feels that death is imminent.
“Some days I'm not even sure if I'm going to live until the next day. I have chest pain all the time...I continue to have nightmares,’” he said via KTVB.
In these nightmares, he dreams that he is back on the execution table while at other times he sees his wife on it.
During the ordeal that is the result of his current discomfort, Creech’s executioners tried to get the intravenous drip into his arms and failed so they moved over to his legs.
“They started in my right arm, up by my elbow and that was the first place that they poked me,” Creech said. “I could feel it. It was like a sting. The part that hurt was when they moved the needle around trying to get the vein to accept it. Then they kept it moving down my arms and feet several times.”
“The worst ones was when they got down to my ankles. I was thinking the whole time that this is really it. I'm dead. This is my day to die,” Creech told the New York Times.
He noted that he “fully believed” he “was gonna die,” and had “convinced” himself “that was it,” at around 10 AM, February 28.
“They came into the death cell and handcuffed me and strapped me to the board. The execution team, they call it the strap-down team, they put me on the gurney and wheeled me in through the execution room,” he recalled.
“Then once they had me in there, they started adjusting my hands and legs to strap me down, and then the warden told them to go ahead and proceed with the execution.”
“I looked over to the right and saw my wife sitting there and she had the most devastating, horrible, terrorized look on her face that I had ever seen in my life. It made me sick to my stomach, it was horrible.”
The attempts were called off at 10.58 AM and the Creech’s stay of execution was announced to the public by Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh, Tewalt when he told the media:
“What they encountered in some instances was an access issue, but in others where they could establish access, they were unable – it was a vein quality issue that made them not confident in their ability to administer chemicals through the IV site once established,” per KTVB.
Creech has since credited his continued existence to divine intervention, claiming it is the only thing he can think of. “Otherwise I'd be dead,” he reasoned.