Woman Dies of Water Intoxication

[CathyBogart]

This was one stupid idea from the beginning. The morning show has been canceled, people are being fired, the lawsuit is not going to be successful....and it's all so pointless. I listened to some clips from the morning's show...comments like "couldn't you DIE from this?" from one DJ met with "Nah, they'll throw it up before it becomes serious", and the same thing said to a nurse who called in to warn them, telling them that she was not there participatin gbecause she didn't want to die.

From what I'm reading, the lawsuit will probably fail because she went in to the contest exercising free will, could have stopped whenever she wanted, and was aware that there were possible health risks.

So tragic.

[Pembroke_Corgi]

How horrible. I hope that radio station has to pay big time. It won't make up for hear death by any means, but they should be responsible.

[ramanth]

I had no clue you could die from drinking too much water. That poor woman's family.

How utterly tragic.

[Miss Z]

Oh my....what a stupid 'game'!

I was learning about this in biology just a few days back, how the dilution of the blood becomes too great and causes excess water to diffuse into the cells. Eventually the cells can't take it any more and they burst.

I feel very sorry for the woman's family and those that knew her.

[Cataholic]

I had no clue you could die from drinking too much water. That poor woman's family.

How utterly tragic.

Often I get my stories confused, but, wasn't there a military person that died of this while in the field training???

[Lady's Human]

There are FAR too many deaths from this in training.

[RICHARD]

The next time you see about a sports related death on a hot day check out the coaches and their comments...

"We took many water breaks."


They MAKE you drink water. Some times, too much water.


The old adage is that if "you feel thirsty, you are already in trouble"
People try to keep that from happening by forcing water breaks-
sometimes killing people. Pay attention to the autopsy report and 9 times out of 10 heart failure is the culprit.

[caseysmom]

This happened here where I live, it has been all over the news. This is just the stupidest thing they could have done.

[Logan]

What a waste of life. The whole story, as it has unfolded, has made me so sad. I'm sad that this woman and the other participants were so desperate to win this silly game. I'm even sadder that the "hosts" of this game didn't research more and didn't heed the warnings they got.........they deserve to be fired, but I am so angry that I feel like their station needs to be taken off of the air.

What heartless, awful people, to react the way they did to the whole situation.

[Giselle]

What a waste of life. The whole story, as it has unfolded, has made me so sad. I'm sad that this woman and the other participants were so desperate to win this silly game. I'm even sadder that the "hosts" of this fame didn't research more and didn't heed the warnings they got.........they deserve to be fired, but I am so angry that I feel like their station needs to be taken off of the air.

What heartless, awful people, to react the way they did to the whole situation.

What's most upsetting is that this woman died in an attempt to please her children. My heart goes out to that mother and her family.

[Pam]

This woman's mother was on Larry King last night and I was amazed at her composure. All I can say is that she must have been heavily sedated. I had never heard of anyone dying from drinking too much water. This is heartbreaking because it just should have never happened.

[todd]

Seen that on the news

[cassiesmom]

Saw this in today's online Chicago Tribune:

Lawsuit: DJs Were Warned of Contest Risk

By JULIET WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer

January 26, 2007, 12:44 PM CST

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Disc jockeys hosting an on-air water-drinking contest should have summoned medical help when a woman complained her head hurt and noted that her belly was so swollen she looked pregnant, said an attorney for a family suing for wrongful death.

Instead, "The talent verbally chastised and otherwise coerced her, exhorting her to remain in the contest by threatening that she would be disqualified if she 'puked,'" according to the lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of 28-year-old Jennifer Lea Strange's family.

The mother of three died Jan. 12, just hours after drinking as much as two gallons of water in the contest to win a video game console.

In the lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, the family claims the DJs on the "Morning Rave" program on KDND-FM knew of the potential dangers of drinking too much water, yet went ahead with the contest anyway.

"The talent admitted during the broadcast that they should have done more research once various participants, including (Strange), began to report medical symptoms," it said. "Such conduct was despicable and so vile, base or contemptible that it would be looked down upon and despised by reasonable people."

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. The DJs called the contest "Hold your Wee for a Wii."

"They keep telling me that it's the water. That it will tell my head to hurt and then it will make me puke," Strange said, according to an audio tape of the show.

At one point during the contest, a listener who identified herself as a nurse called in to warn the disc jockeys that the stunt could be fatal.

"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of the DJs responded to the caller's warning, the lawsuit said.

Another DJ said with laugh: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."

The family claims Strange never signed a liability waiver. Instead, the form merely granted the station permission to use the contestants' names and photos for promotions, said the family's attorney, Roger Dreyer.

"I guarantee you if there was a waiver of liability they would have produced it," Dreyer said at a news conference.

The Sacramento-area station fired 10 employees after Strange's death.

The lawsuit names as defendants KDND's parent company, Entercom/Sacramento, as well as employees and managers who organized, promoted and participated in the contest.

The radio station would not comment directly about Thursday's lawsuit, Entercom spokesman Charles Sipkins said.

"We reiterate our deepest sympathies and condolences to the Strange family, but we do not comment on pending litigation," he said.

Sipkins said he did not know whether the DJs jockeys had retained their own attorneys.

After several hours of drinking water, Strange relented and accepted the second-place prize, tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert. Her mother, Nina Hulst, found her dead several hours later at the family's home in Rancho Cordova, a Sacramento suburb.

"I want nobody else to have to suffer the pain that our family is suffering," Hulst said at the news conference.

The Federal Communications Commission has joined the investigation into Strange's death at the request of the family's attorneys, spokesman Clyde Ensslin said. He said FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was "troubled" by the information in the letter.

If it finds wrongdoing, the FCC could fine the station or deny its license renewal application.