A death row prisoner survived execution after 18 attempts to end his life.
According to reports, the prisoner went through 18 failed execution processes as officials did not find a suitable vein.
He recently died after suspectedly contracting the coronavirus.
Romell Broom spent 24 years in a prison in Ohio, USA, waiting to be killed.
He was inside prison for kidnapping, raping, and murdering Tryna Middleton, a 14-year-old, as she was walking back to her house in 1984.
His execution was scheduled for September 15, 2009 following a DNA test in 2003 that filed to clear the prisoner’s name after he maintained innocence.
Broom was strapped to a table but the execution failed because officials failed to find a a suitable vein to jab him with the fatal mixture of pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride and midazolam.
Broom reportedly tried to help out the authorities by moving his arm up and down.
He also flexed his fingers, but every time they tried to find one, the vein collapsed.
2 hours after trying to kill him, a decision to give up was made.
The next date was set up for September 22 and officials tried to come up with a way to kill him, but the decision was then made.
The court then said that the execution was to be postponed.
Amnesty International fought to save the life of the man.
On March 16, 2016 Justice Judith Lanzinger ruled against him and said that a botched attempt did not constitute failure.
They added that the IV line insertion was only a preliminary step while the execution itself ‘commences when the lethal drug enters the IV line’.
Justice Judith went on:
Because the attempt did not proceed to the point of injection of a lethal drug into the IV line, jeopardy never attached. We simply are unable to conclude that Broom has established that the state in carrying out a second attempt is likely to violate its protocol and cause severe pain.
Another date was set for him.
The court said that he was to be executed on June 17, 2020, but last April, the drug was not available.
The date was then moved again for March 16, 2022.
As the death row inmate waited for the drug to arrive, the coronavirus pandemic set in.
It is believed that he got the virus and was placed on the “COVID probable list”.
He passed away on December 28, 2020, at the age of 64.