Those are my words, not those of the radio station, and when I say that it is not inherently deadly, I mean that it won't automatically kill you. Your risk level depends on your body, and apparently hers was less able to tolerate that amount of water than your average individual.
This thread is about the civil and criminal liability of individuals who publicly encourage others to engage in potentially deadly behavior. ( "Fly out the window like Superman, kids!!") If a death occurs, the liability ranges from civil lawsuit to involuntary manslaughter if it is done out of stupidity to murder if you knew what you were doing.
The words of these particular DJ's were much worse than your words. They were warned on the air that excessive water drinking might cause death.
"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of them responded.
Another DJ laughed: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."
A prosecutor might seek manslaughter or even second degree murder.
Your words merely show a total lack of understanding of the causes and danger of hyponatremia. If you were the DJ, the worst the an honest prosecutor would seek would be involuntasry manslaughter.
I understand the causes and dangers of hyponatremia because, as an M.D., disregarding what an patient's sodium levels are and inappropriately using D5W IV's instead of Normal Saline IV's is one of the easiest ways we can kill a patient.
The human body needs to have the sodium (salt) concentration between a certain very narrow range.
If it becomes too salty beyond a certain point, you die.
If it becomes too diluted beyond a certain point, you die.
A person with two healthy kidneys can excrete about 900 ml (0.24 galllons) of free water per hour.
So, without sodium supplementation, any amount of free water above a quater of a gallon per hour goes directly towards the dilution of the sodium concentration in your body no matter what a perfect physical specimen you may be.
This contestant drank about two gallons of water leaving seven quarts of water to dilute her total body sodium.
With the help of one of my nephrology colleagues, we can get you into a lab and infuse two or three or four gallons of water into you and, with playing around with electrolyte replacement, very careful monitoring blood serum electrolyte levels, Lasix, etc. we can have all sorts of fun trying to see how much of a total volume of water we can tolerate before we burn up your kidneys.
However, if we just use two to three gallons worth of sterile, non-saline water IV's, we will kill you. I gurantee it.
I just looked at a med text regarding water intoxication. The show's stunt was inherently deadly. IMO it's the equivalent of a fight to the death. Had a doc been consulted first a reasonable person would never expose themselves to this. Even an EMT should have known this was deadly, even if in a vague way.