Oklahoma death row inmate shaken by convulsions and vomiting

John Grant, a 60-year-old African-American, one of the many death row inmates who in 2000 committed the murder of a prison employee, was executed in excruciating suffering, shaken by convulsions and vomiting. It is not the first time this has happened.

Oklahoma death row inmate shaken by convulsions and vomiting

John Grant reportedly vomited and convulsed during his execution in the US state of Oklahoma. A 60-year-old African-American, he was sentenced to death in 2000 for the murder of a prison employee.

Grant was the first man to re-enter the death chamber after the U.S. Supreme Court authorized Oklahoma to reinstate executions using a controversial combination of lethal injection drugs, ending a six-year moratorium.

Prison authorities in the southern state injected him with the three substances and he was pronounced dead at 16:21.

Convulsions and vomiting

According to CNN affiliate KOKH reporter Dan Snyder, who witnessed the execution at McAlester State Penitentiary in Oklahoma, Grant began having seizures almost immediately after taking the first drug, Midazolam. “His entire upper back repeatedly lifted off the gurney,” Snyder said. “As the seizures continued, Grant began vomiting.”

Over the next several minutes, medical personnel entered the room several times to clean up and remove Grant’s “still breathing” vomit, according to Snyder.

Grant was declared unconscious by medical personnel at about 4:15 p.m. (local time). Doses of the second and third drugs used were administered a minute later, according to the reporter.

Controversial execution

This protocol had already been applied in 2014 and 2015, but the obvious suffering of the detainees led the state to declare a moratorium on executions.

The same Midazolam was also used in the controversial execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014: instead of losing consciousness, the death row inmate contracted, convulsed and said a few words.