US inmate's lethal injection halted after failure to locate a vein

An American prisoner narrowly avoided execution, at least for now, after an unforeseen incident. The Tennessee lethal injection was halted after medical staff could not locate a suitable vein.

Tony Carruthers, 57, was scheduled to be executed on Thursday morning (21 May) at a Nashville prison for the murder of three people in 1994.

The Tennessee Department of Corrections said medical staff had located the primary IV line to administer the lethal drug, but could not locate another suitable vein for a backup, as required under Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol.

‘The execution was subsequently halted,’ the Tennessee Department of Corrections said in a statement, as reported by AFP on Friday (22 May 2026).

Amy Harwell, Carruthers’s attorney, told USA Today that during the roughly two-hour process, his client endured pain and a lot of blood flowed as staff tried to locate a vein to administer the lethal dose of pentobarbital.

Governor Bill Lee granted a one-year reprieve to Carruthers, who maintains his innocence.

Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP), said, ‘The failed execution of Tony Carruthers is terrifying, but not surprising.’

‘TADP has for years voiced concerns about serious issues with lethal injections and urged our state to be more transparent so that these problems can be addressed,’ Rector said.

Carruthers was one of two inmates scheduled for execution in the United States on Thursday (21 May) local time.

Richard Knight, 47, was executed by lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. local time on Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman and her four-year-old daughter in 2000.

Fourteen executions have been carried out in the United States this year — seven in Florida, four in Texas, two in Oklahoma, and one in Arizona.

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