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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — <\/span>The head of Tennessee\u2019s prison system is resigning after the failed execution of Christa Pike, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday.<\/p>\n Lee said that Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will step down this month.<\/p>\n Strada said in a statement that stepping aside \u201cis in the best interests\u201d of the state as an independent review is carried out to determine why Pike\u2019s execution failed Wednesday.<\/p>\n Pike<\/a> was placed on a ventilator and remained unconscious in a hospital, her attorneys said in a court filing Friday.<\/p>\n Hospital staff, her lawyers said, were working to save Pike\u2019s life and as of late Thursday were trying to clear the two doses of the drug<\/a> that the state uses to execute prisoners.<\/p>\n The stunning failure<\/a> in Tennessee\u2019s execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee has ordered an independent review. <\/p>\n Pike\u2019s attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.<\/p>\n \u201cApparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike\u2019s body,\u201d they wrote in the court filing.<\/p>\n Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed<\/a> a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage. She later became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n