Christa Pike Botched Execution: Medical Condition Might've Saved Her Life, Doctor Says

Christa Pike's blood condition may have saved her life temporarily, a doctor says ... though he's making it clear she doesn't have a super resistance to pentobarbital -- the drug that was supposed to kill her.

Dr. Joel Zivot -- a respected anesthesiologist who previously examined Christa -- sat down with Jakson on TMZ's YouTube series, "In The Know," to discuss what happened during Wednesday's botched execution in Tennessee ... telling us he thinks Christa's thrombocytosis may have played a role.

Basically, Dr. Zivot says Christa has a high platelet count ... and platelets rush to the site of an injury to clot the blood -- keeping humans from bleeding out if they get a paper cut.

An IV punctures the vein ... so platelets rush to the area and, in a person like Christa with thrombocytosis, excessive clots can form inside the vein, blocking it off entirely.

Dr. Zivot says he thinks that this might've happened and -- when the medical team tried to inject the pentobarbital -- the vein stretched and then burst open.

Pentobarbital kills a person only if there's enough of it at one time in the bloodstream ... by leaking into the tissues, it couldn't kill Christa.

We already know Christa's botched execution has taken its toll on her ... her lawyers say she is unconscious and needs a ventilator to breathe.

Christa -- who is on death row after being found guilty of murdering Colleen Klemmer back in 1995 -- was rushed to a local hospital after she could be heard snoring through the execution ... which took an hour to get underway because doctors seemingly couldn't find a vein to inject her.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has postponed all executions in the state until the conclusion of a thorough review into what exactly went wrong this week.