Woman dies in water contest

A lot of people don't know that drinking too much water is dangerous. I didn't know until a year or so ago and I'm always reading about nutrition and physiology.

There's a lot of stupidity to go around

So let me get this straight. This lady managed to reproduce and pass on her genes before pulling this stunt?

Told you this natural selection stuff wasn't perfect. If there's one thing dolts can do handily, it's breed.

I hope the radio station loses its broadcasting license.

Harry Kooter wrote:

So if no one had died and you heard the results of this contest on the radio station, how many of you would be ranting about what a stupid idea it was? I'm guessing no one. It's just a stupid contest. Unfortunately, someone died. Although we all know that that was a possible outcome, it was not a likely outcome by any means. Hell, if some radio station put on a local 5k and gave the winner a wii, you'd all support it even though there is a possibility that someone will drop dead on the course. I'd imagine that most of you would participate in some kind of chug-n-run event if a local radio station put one on without saying that they were negligent and should be sued.

Again, it's not the fact that they held the contest, it's that they seem not to have done their homework and taken any precautions. Any RD who does the same should likewise burn.

Maybe you'd be in favor of a legal system in which only willful acts count, and there's no such thing as negligence. That's fine, but it's not what we have, and, as a result, people have some expectation of being reasonably protected, or informed of the specific dangers, when they participate in an organized event.

Also, I'd be quite pissed if a local radio station started giving out Wiis as race prizes, seeing as how I won a race put on by a local station a couple of months ago, and I didn't get jack.

Then again, I did skip all the water stations.

I'm guessing that for various interdependent reasons, radio contests in general select for people with an IQ between 75 and 90, tops. It's like the lottery and slot machines. When's the last time you saw someone who DIDN'T look like Alfred E. Neuman or the Church Lady on TV for being a the holder of a winning PowerBall ticket? The poor woman who died was probably so inbred that her eyes were waving about on stalks, like those insects on Sesame Street. God damn.

Harry Kooter wrote:

Although we all know that that was a possible outcome, it was not a likely outcome by any means.

yeah, actually hyponatremia was a pretty likely outcome for a contest like this. hell of a lot more likely than someone dying in a road race.

i honestly think 90% of people or more that are non-runners would have no clue you could die from this. i'm not so sure why you guys think everybody involved was so stupid. the reason nobody looked up the potential health issues is because nobody had any clue that there could be a problem. the reason you all think this is a obvious health risk is because we are runners and all have heard of it at one point. this is a sad story. i feel for the lady who died and her family.

no, they're stupid for not checking it out. saying "i had no clue that there could be a problem" is what an inexperienced ten year old kid tells daddy when he f***s up, not a business. life is about covering your ass. one doesn't hold any public contest - let alone one like this - without talking to some people about potential liability. they either didn't do this - and thus were stupid - or did ask someone to check it out and they were stupid for not even bothering to do a simple google search. i have no idea what kind of business these people are running. at any rate, they won't be running it for much longer.

Totally agree. One simple "GOOGLE" by a radio station producer's intern would have yielded more than enough info for this morons. This is where the FCC should be concentrating their time, not chasing down shock jocks looking at poontang.

Our sports med assn provided background to a story on hyponatremia that ended up being an A1 story in the Washington Post back in the fall of 2003. The well documented cases of the two female deaths in 2002 at Boston and the Marine Corps Marathon prompted more media attention. Given the increase of slower endurance runners who tend to drink, drink, drink, we have to keep beating the drum. This stunt was equivalent to making a marathon runner chug a couple of gallons of water at each water stop before he/she can move on in a marathon.

Hyponatremia in this case is usually called "exercise associated hyponatremia". This poor woman certainly died without breaking a sweat yet drank water 'til she dropped.

There's little question the radio station has a major problem on its hands, both from a legal perspective and from a PR perspective. My suspician is that some radio jocks there thought it would be hilarious to watch people squirm with discomfort to win a Wii (after they realized that Wii sounded like wee), and did not have the idea properly vetted by their legal department. I cannot imagine this will turn out any way but that they will pay some major money to the family. I am rather suprised to see some of the comments here, since they seem pretty ill-informed. Not many people are aware that you can die from over drinking, but at the least the people who organized this knew it would create a lot of discomfort in the people trying to win the Wii- and that was okay by them. Bet they're surprised now.

CRDarwin wrote:

So let me get this straight. This lady managed to reproduce and pass on her genes before pulling this stunt?

Told you this natural selection stuff wasn't perfect. If there's one thing dolts can do handily, it's breed.

I hope the radio station loses its broadcasting license.

I hope you are sterilized.

chuck d wrote:

life is about covering your ass.

You just said more about yourself with that one single pathetic statement than with all the other reams of garbage you've posted on this board over the years.

In the future, whenever I am feeling low, I will comfort myself with the knowledge that I am not you.

Thanks.

I heard the station is doing a consume Ex-Lax for an X-Box promotion next week. Did you guys here about it? How much Ex-Lax can you consume in 3 hours without going to the bathroom.

We have our first finalist of 2007!

Lost Cause wrote:

She didn't win either she got second which was Justin Timberlake tickets.

Has the coroner ruled out suicide?

Slim, that was excellent.

I wonder if her kids went to the show? Hopefully those prime tix didn't go to waste.

I've been following this one since the story broke. It seems the dj's were contacted by a registered nurse during one of their call-in shows and were informed that drinking large volumes of water is dangerous. The dj's basically replied that the contestants were to sign waivers so those dangers were, from the stations' point of view, covered. I don't think it sunk into them that the potential for death was actually there. The contestent who died drank nearly 2 gallons of water during the contest, something like 224 ounces total.

The radio show itself is now off the air, replaced by something else.

there's more to it wrote:

I've been following this one since the story broke. It seems the dj's were contacted by a registered nurse during one of their call-in shows and were informed that drinking large volumes of water is dangerous. The dj's basically replied that the contestants were to sign waivers so those dangers were, from the stations' point of view, covered. I don't think it sunk into them that the potential for death was actually there. The contestent who died drank nearly 2 gallons of water during the contest, something like 224 ounces total.

The radio show itself is now off the air, replaced by something else.

this is much worse than i initially thought. criminal charges may follow. the passage below is pretty disturbing.

"In an online recording of the show, the DJs can be heard making comments joking about people dying from water intoxication, even discussing a case in Northern California two years ago in which student Matthew Carrington, 21, died after drinking too much water during a fraternity stunt.

One of the DJs even admitted they maybe should have done some research before the contest.

One female caller, who identified herself as Eva, also phoned in to warn the radio station that drinking too much water can kill."