Posted on 01/17/2007 5:33:52 AM PST by SpringheelJack
Why not?
Also, she did take second place in the contest, which means that she did urinate at least once, and once she started, it was probably every five minutes or so, she just had too much in the system by that time.
Does anyone know if her build, metabolism, physical condition would affect this at all?
I must respectfully disagree. The problems that athletes have with water toxicity is because they are sweating profusely, thus losing the electrolytes (just a fancy word for salt). If you suspect someone is on the verge of water toxicity, you treat it by giving them salt, not water.
In fact, administering IV's will kill someone on the verge of water toxicity. That's exactly how the soldier in my battalion died. He was on the verge of water toxicity (sweat too much and drank too much water), and the drill sergeants mistook the symptoms for heat stroke. They administered an IV (several, in fact), and that is what finally killed him. Had they given him salt, he may have lived.
Okay. It will be interesting to see what the medical examiner says.
 hg |
| Sure sounds like negligence to to me Add a bit of stupidity to that negligence and I agree. While I personally have never heard of water intoxication specifically, I have enough common sense to know that anything in excess is harmful. I would think that most people would know that water doesn't simply run through a tube between your mouth and bladder. If these people had the forethought to call an attorney, you'd think they would have thought of calling a doctor too. |
Don't be so sure. If a liability waiver is properly worded, i.e., a clear, concise description of the potential dangers and a clear waiver, most states will enforce them. What generally aren't enforced are liability waivers for gross negligence.
Water intoxication (also known as hyperhydration or water poisoning) is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain function that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by a VERY RAPID INTAKE OF WATER.
Body fluids contain electrolytes (particularly sodium compounds, such as sodium chloride) in concentrations that must be held within very narrow limits. Water enters the body orally or intravenously and leaves the body primarily in the urine and in sweat. If water enters the body more quickly than it can be removed, body fluids are diluted and a potentially dangerous shift in electrolyte balance occurs.
Initial symptoms typically include light-headedness, sometimes accompanied by nausea, vomiting, headache and/or malaise. Plasma sodium levels below 100 mmol/L (2.3g/L) frequently result in cerebral edema, seizures, coma, and death within a few hours of drinking the excess water. As with alcohol poisoning, the progression from mild to severe symptoms may occur rapidly as the water continues to enter the body from the stomach or intravenously.
Electrolyte imbalance
Administering a too-dilute or too-concentrated solution can disrupt the patient's balance of sodium, potassium, magnesium, and other electrolytes. Hospital patients usually receive blood tests to monitor these levels. (This would be the problem with the soldier, he was issued a wrong IV for his condition.)
The coroner already reported the the death was water intoxication and there have only been 2 other cases in 10 years or so. He did not indicate any other problems that she had.
We should have more and more of these type of contests for the sole purpose of cleaning out the gene pool.
And there might be some amusement in the process.
If all the contestants heard that, then that might actually make the case weaker.
If not, they should be prosecuted.
If the waiver said that drinking too much water could kill you, then maybe they are OK, since they didn't force the people to drink the water -- unless you believe people have no right to assume risks on their own decision, and that other private citizens are responsible for protecting you from taking freely acknowledged and understood risks.
My bet is that none of these guys really believed you could get sick from drinking water.
Seriously, how many of you are thinking "I certainly wouldn't have died from just drinking a couple gallons of water".
I drank that much water yesterday, of course not all in an hour, but when I work outside in the heat I could drink half a gallon in a single 30-second period.
None of these situations are like what they did, but people don't think things through that much.
If all that stuff is on the air, and the public heard things like them saying the lady was on the floor convulsing, you'd think that somebody would have called in to say that lady needed to go to the hospital -- maybe they had no medical professionals listening.
If a motorcycle jumper is killed performing a stunt, and you paid for a ticket to watch it, and you stood cheering for him to "go, go, go" should you be held criminally or civilly liable?
After all, you paid him to do something that was dangerous, that you knew could kill him, and you goaded him on to do it.
How about the other participants? If they had stopped drinking, she would have won the contest and still been alive. IT was there continuing to drink that forced her to keep drinking, and ultimately killed her.
I think Nintendo should be included in the lawsuit. She wouldn't be trying to win one if she could have bought one -- their marketing a product but not building enough to go around directly led to her participation in this contest. Hey, if they hadn't BUILT the thing, nobody would have even THOUGHT to run a contest to win it.
And of course, they are the ones that named it "wii", knowing that people would make the jokes about having to "wii", which led to this contest. If it was named "GameCube 2" nobody would have throught to run a pissing contest.
Lets see, who else can we find to blame for this woman drinking herself to death?
OK, I really feel sorry for her. I understand kids wanting you to win a Nintendo Wii, and how she would have, like most of us, refused to believe that drinking water could kill her. I think the guys SHOULD be fired for stupidity.
But when it comes to lawsuits and criminal charges, if it turns out she had a knowledge of the risks, I am loathe to support lawsuits which pass off personal responsibility simply because the story is particularly tragic.
If it is shown the people running the contest hid the risks that they knew, then all bets are off, as far as I'm concerned.
A definition of water intoxication.
Body fluids contain electrolytes (particularly sodium compounds, such as sodium chloride) in concentrations that must be held within very narrow limits. Water enters the body orally or intravenously and leaves the body primarily in the urine, sweat and by exhaled water vapour. If water enters the body more quickly than it can be removed, body fluids are diluted and a potentially dangerous shift in electrolyte balance occurs.
Most water intoxication is caused by hyponatremia, an overdilution of sodium in the blood plasma, which in turn causes an osmotic shift of water from extracellular fluid (outside of cells) to intracellular fluid (within cells). The cells swell as a result of changes in osmotic pressure and may cease to function. When this occurs in the cells of the central nervous system and brain, water intoxication is the result. Additionally, many other cells in the body may undergo cytolysis, wherein cell membranes that are unable to stand abnormal osmotic pressures rupture, killing the cells. Initial symptoms typically include light-headedness, sometimes accompanied by nausea, vomiting, headache and/or malaise. Plasma sodium levels below 100 mmol/L (2.3g/L) frequently result in cerebral edema, seizures, coma, and death within a few hours of drinking the excess water. As with alcohol poisoning, the progression from mild to severe symptoms may occur rapidly as the water continues to enter the body from the intestines or intravenously.
A person with two healthy kidneys can excrete about 1.5 litres (0.39 gallons) of water per hour at maximum filtration[citation needed] (other studies find the limit to be as little as 0.9L/h (0.24 gal)[2]). 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. However, this must be modulated by potential water losses via other routes. For example, a person who is perspiring heavily may lose 1 L/h (0.26 gal) of water through perspiration alone, thereby raising the threshold for water intoxication. The problem is further complicated by the amount of electrolytes lost in urine or sweat, which is variable within a range controlled by the body's regulatory mechanisms. Water intoxication can be prevented by consuming water that is isotonic with water losses, but the exact concentration of electrolytes required is difficult to determine and fluctuates over time, and the greater the time period involved, the smaller the disparity that may suffice to produce electrolyte imbalance and water intoxication.
Sodium is not the only mineral that can become overdiluted from excessive water intake. Magnesium is also excreted in urine. "Magnesium deficiency can cause metabolic changes that may contribute to heart attacks and strokes."[3] Intravenous magnesium is used in cardiac care units for cardiac arrhythmias.[4]
Sounds like water intoxication killed her to me.
Happened to a female soldier either at AIT or Basic training a few years back.
Here is where we diverge. She showed symptoms of water toxicity and the station did nothing. They let her continue and did not have medical people on the side in case there was trouble. Even with personal responsibility, the average person probably though dying from water poisoning is exotic and probably won't happen. I don't believe they, nor the station, actually understood the seriousness, nor the likelihood, of the risks involved and there was nothing in place to mitigate possible health effects that would be expected. The volumes of water that were permitted to be consumed were well within the threshold for water toxicity and the station let those quantities be consumed. I really think there was a disconnect between what the studio and the participants thought they knew and what was reality. Nobody recognized how dangerous the situation was. Even the on-air personalities were joking about it. They obviously did not consider it to be life and death serious. THat's a pretty strong infdicator of how reckless they were with human life.
She was only "runner up" so that means someone else won and was able to drink even more water with success.
There's no evidence she was not informed of the risks involved.
Did the station consider a potentially less risky alternative like salting the water or using Gatorade instead and chose water to save costs?
There could be a civil case here but whether it would result in a judgment for her heirs would depend on the specific facts including the level of informed consent, whether there was medical care immediately available, whether signs and symptoms of water intoxication had been disclosed.
Yes, they were all reckless, but if all of them were clueless, ignorant, and unaware of any danger, why would one party have to pay another 3rd party millions of dollars for the loss of the woman, if she is found to have understood the danger herself?
I am disturbed and somewhat swayed by the fact they had some awareness of the danger and ignored her obvious distress (although she did insist on continuing according to the news report).
If she had not died, would they have been guilty of anything other than a stupid contest? If an act is not a crime in itself, can it really become a crime simply because of a particular outcome?
This was so senseless that it is hard to talk about, or think about in a personal way. It sounds like a silly story and you want to joke about it but a woman is dead and 3 kids have to live knowing that their mother died trying to win them a video game.
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