Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a full review of the state's execution procedure after the execution of a convicted killer took almost two hours on Wednesday.

Joseph Rudolph Wood III, who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and her father in 1989, was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs at 1:53 p.m. CST at Arizona's state prison. However, he was not pronounced death until 3:49 p.m. CST. Witnesses say that during that stint of time, he was seen gasping for air.

Halfway into the execution, Wood's public defenders filed an emergency motion for a stay of execution with a federal district court stating that their client was still alive more than an hour after receiving a lethal injection, which typically takes about 10 minutes.

"He has been gasping and snorting for more than an hour. He is still alive," wrote Wood's lawyers in their motion to abort the execution and provide Wood with life-saving care, according to the Huffington Post.

However, their motion failed to save him.

A witness at Wood's execution said he saw the convict take over 600 gasps of air.

"I counted about 660 times he gasped," said Arizona Republic reporter Michael Kiefer, reports USA Today. "That petered out by 3:33. The death was called at 3:49."

Another eye witness reporter said the execution was "very disturbing to watch ... like a fish on shore gulping for air."

Gov. Brewer said that she ordered the Department of Corrections to conduct a review of the process because she was "concerned" about the length of the execution. However, she added that Wood didn't suffer "in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims."

"One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer," she said in a statement.