Posted on 01/16/2007 7:36:59 PM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A Sacramento area radio station Tuesday fired 10 employees -- including its three morning disc jockeys -- after a mother of three died Friday following an on-air water-drinking contest at the station's studios.
The hosts of KDND FM's "Morning Rave" program were fired a day after the station announced it was suspending the show and investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of 28-year-old Jennifer Lea Strange.
Strange was one of about 18 contestants who tried to win a Nintendo Wii gaming console by seeing how much water they could drink without going to the bathroom.
Strange was hoping to win the console for her children. But after ingesting nearly two gallons of water she appeared ill at the studio and was found dead hours later in her home.
Authorities say early autopsy findings indicate she died of water intoxication.
Isn't it amazing what ignorance can induce!
*As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.*
And humans could hold gallon after gallon of water, without "wii-ing."
This is such a sad story - and I'm glad the people were fired for it and the idiotic promotion was cancelled forever. Hate to hear stuff like this.
The station is toast.
Why should the station be held responsible for not knowing water could kill you, when the woman didn't know either?
During the show, a nurse called in and warned them about the danger and was blown off by the on-air staff.
Even though she died at home, the toxic dose was clearly given on the station's property. Get it? On the station's property.
Factor the above into the equation. Also factor that she's got children.
Also factor that this is California, the most litigious state in the nation.
I repeat, the station's toast.
They're responsible. Holding the contest means they assumed an obligation to check out the risks. This is particularly true for contests where contestants are pitted against each other in endurance type situations (staying awake contests, etc.) IIRC, one station had a contest where contestants had to keep touching a new car, and the last person touching it won. They gave the people bathroom breaks every couple of hours, but also kept a doctor on site for the entire duration, since they were there for several days.
Yep - I've planned and supervised numerous promotional events over the years - although nothing like this, because I avoided such things at all costs - and we always had medical personnel and legal experts, everyone, give it all a thorough going-over before anything went public.
This contest was just a despicable and incompetent thing to do, all for the love of the "extremely extreme" these days. (No slur intended on our esteemed FReeper thread host, you understand.)
Good.
I'm astounded that people do not know that too much water can kill a person stone dead. Water has been used from time immemorial as a weapon of torture.
(Some people think "water torture" involves a drip-drip-drip of water on the forehead. It may well, but more commonly it involves physical restraints, a funnel, and a very large bucket that is refilled regularly. A painful death is a regular result.)
Thought thru carefully: the internal organs like the stomach, small intestines, large intestines, kidneys and bladder have a finite capacity beyond which they will not stretch. Water will not compress beyond its volumetric capacity: it must be evacuated at least as fast as it is ingested. There is a finite speed that this can happen at.
It takes no genius to figure out that such a system can be overloaded.
The morons who put on this contest are culpable and should definitely be held to account.
Would the sponsor of a marathon be held for murder if a person who runs has a heart attack because of overexertion?
Most conservatives rightly laugh when juries grant millions of dollars to people who burn themselves on their hot coffee.
Why is this any different? They didn't make the woman drink water, they had no idea drinking water could kill you, they had no reason to believe that drinking a bunch of water would do anything but make someone have to go to the bathroom.
Why should the station be monetarily culpable?
Maybe I wasn't clear -- I think the guys should have been fired, I think the station should apologize. I just don't believe people should be criminally or civilly liable for actions freely taken by others when they had no knowledge of risk.
Suppose you gave someone a cookie, and they ate it -- and died on the spot. You found out they had peanut allergies. Their relatives sue you for a million bucks. Should you have to pay?
Water poisoning is somewhat like peanut allergies, in that it does effect different people different ways. Some people drink gallons of water with no effect. If you've ever worked out, you might have drank gallons of water. If one of the guys at the station was a runner, they could well have drunk a lot more water than this woman did, and had no reason to think it was dangerous -- even though if they were smart they would know that when working out you are sweating and need to drink water.
This is a tragedy, to be sure, and the contest was juvenile (as most are), but I bet if I had taken a poll on FR a week ago about this, with no comment, over half the people here would have had no idea that the contest put anybody's lives in danger.
I don't care where the water was given. I suppose we do blame bars for giving people too much to drink, but then they are selling the liquor, the dangers are known, and the liability is spelled out for them. You think that if you go to a restaurant and ask them to keep bringing you pitchers of water, at some point the waiter is going to tell you that you need to stop drinking because you might kill yourself? If they don't, and you die, you think you can sue the restaurant for serving you too much water?
I suppose the station could have asked a doctor about the risks. Then again, the woman could have asked a doctor about the risks.
Now, as to whether the station "IS" toast, I suppose that's a different question -- I took the comment to mean that people agreed the station DESERVED to be toast. But as to whether they might be sued even though they shouldn't be, that is where those other factors come into play.
But as to what SHOULD happen, the standard should be what a reasonable person would or should know, and frankly I think it's clear that a reasonable person would NOT have known that drinking two gallons of water could be fatal.
I missed that -- was the call on-air so that all the contestants heard it, or was this a call that was intercepted in the back room?
Ohmygawd, the stuff is piped into just about every home in America!
They were fired, but should the station have to pay millions? Were they criminally negligent?
This wasn't water torture, they gave the contestants water, and the contestants freely drank it.
If it is true that a nurse called the station privately, and told them the risks, and they didn't stop, that does change things considerably for me -- once you know the risks, you ARE culpable, although I guess they would argue they didn't believe the person was a nurse or knew what they were talking about.
If I believed for a second that any of the people involved KNEW this was dangerous and did it anyway, I would want them thrown in jail. But at the moment, if it is true that nobody at the station had any idea of the danger, I don't think a lawsuit is in order for an action that was not known to be dangerous. It seems nobody at the station had any idea drinking water could be harmful, and neither did ANY of the contestants.
I guess I just don't get the rush to blaming. There are food-eating contests sponsored all over the world, with people eating enough that it would seem to be able to kill the average person. I would guess that they have medical personnel at those contests in case a person needs medical attention on the spot, but do those medical people follow the contestants home? Do the medical people not simply say at the start that the contest is stupid and risky?
What if they had brought in a doctor and the doctor said that and the people still took part. The woman was not sick until she got home, would the station still be culpable?
OK, I've made my point, or at least argued it as best I can. I guess they wouldn't want ME on the jury.
Maybe the water company should be held criminally liable if they don't put monitors on the water supply and cut you off if they detect you have drank too much without going to the bathroom. "Hey, we just detected 3 gallons of water going into the house without any water going out -- better cut it off before they kill themselves....."
>>>OK, I've made my point, or at least argued it as best I can. I guess they wouldn't want ME on the jury.
Right, because you've made up your mind without hearing ALL of the evidence. I would not want you on a jury either.
So water is dangerous, check.
I'll stick to beer, thanks for the safety tip!
No, I've render an opinion based on the evidence I had available to me at the time.
I believe my comments regarding the alleged Nurse's call shows that, given more evidence, I could change my opinion.
The original comment I was responding too seemed based on this article, and claimed the station was culpable based, it appeared, simply on the fact that they ran the contest.
I have explained that I would only find culpability if the station KNEW of the risks.
Water intoxication actually occurs well before you can overfill the system as you suggest.
Rest of post per Wikipedia:
Body fluids contain electrolytes (particularly sodium compounds, such as sodium chloride) in concentrations that must be held within very narrow limits. If water enters the body more quickly than it can be removed, body fluids are diluted and eventually a dangerous shift in electrolyte balance occurs.
Sodium is not the only mineral that can become overdiluted from excessive water intake. Magnesium deficiency can cause metabolic changes that may contribute to heart attacks and strokes.
Consuming as little as 1.8 litres of water (0.48 gal) in a single sitting may prove fatal for a person adhering to a low-sodium diet, or 3 litres (0.79 gallons) for a person on a normal diet.
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