The family of the woman who died after the “Hold your Wee for a Wii” water-drinking contest a few weeks ago is suing the station, owners and radio staff.
I hadn’t previously read that they’d photographed the contestants. Oof - and that they’ve refused so far to release the photos.
"Dreyer spoke at a press conference Thursday, saying the radio station has ignored requests to hand over photos taken of participants during the contest, as well as other materials.
“They took pictures of people vomiting, laying on the floor and having tremendous shutdown. We’re looking forward to seeing those pictures,” said Dreyer.
Dreyer also said he does not believe a waiver of liability signed by Strange exists."
The FCC is investigating, too.
I wonder what kind of legal twist that’ll make if the radio station really can’t produce a waiver that she supposedly signed - not that this would make it all good, anyway.
The waiver wouldn’t be worth much even if she had signed it. The station’s main negligence is not having a medical professional on hand and not taking steps to prevent the possibility of overdose.
The Smoking Gun has the court papers. There is plenty of grounds for negligence: The station didn’t check participants’ health, there was no warning of health risks, no advisory, and when the woman complained afterwards she felt ill, no medical assistance was supplied.
The station and its DJs are going to have to hope for an out-of-court settlement; it’d be very hard not to have them hit with a liability judgment.
I’ve already ranted about these guys. My only objection to the suit is that family members have said, “This isn’t about the money, it’s to send a message.” As a radio station exec, I resent the hell out of that. I don’t know what the clowns at that station were smoking when they dreamed up this stupid stunt, but the radio industry doesn’t need to be sent a message. It’s about the money. And not that that’s a wrong thing, either. Something lawyers have trouble communicating is that while monetary damages won’t bring back the deceased, they will replace her income so her family doesn’t have to worry about food, shelter and clothing. Huge monetary settlements are supposed to be punitive of the people who screwed up (believe me, I don’t need to hear that message – I’m a responsible businessman, and I understand tort law!) In this case, it may make it impossible for the irresponsible people in charge to continue being in radio – and that may be a good thing.
Believe me, it’s ALL about the money – and it should be. When it comes to business, money is what we understand.
When I heard a tape of the female DJ the morning of the competition saying on the air something like, “But isn’t it dangerous to drink too much water? Can’t you die from that?” I thought, uh oh. The station’s insurance company better get out the checkbook.
Yeesh. Before, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since I’m sure many people didn’t know about the risk of water intoxication before this story…but now that I know that someone even tried to warn them, there’s really no excuse for what happened.
I feel very bad for her 11 year old son. I’d expect that the Wii was supposed to be for him (since the other kids are too young to understand what’s going on), so he probably is going to have a hard time not blaming himself for what happened. What a waste of a life.
I’m torn by this. Yes, the radio station should have thought this through. But geez, she was an adult. No one sat there and forced her to sign up or to drink the water. Shouldn’t she have been responsible enough to learn about what might happen? It’s time we started taking responsiblilty for our own actions.
I was thinking of her husband blaming himself for not making enough money for them to be able to afford to buy one, but yeah. All for a stupid game console.
Along with what Tastes of Chocolate says, though, I don’t expect a jury to find the radio station 100% responsible for the woman’s death. I expect they’ll determine she had some responsibility for her own safety. It’s not like they forced the water down her throat. I expect that might determine the award amounts. I said when it happened that it sounded like a 50/50 thing.
I’m the #1 proponent of the “people need to take responsibility for their own actions” schtick, and even I think the radio station needs to be hung out to dry here. (after all, they created the contest, which was also an action that they are responsible for)
This suit was inevitable, and Sunrazor is spot on about the money issue. Yes, it’s about the money. And the family of that woman is fully entitled to break the station’s bank.
I assume she was one of the ten people sacked. Does her warning absolve her of any responsibility? Or is she (potentially) criminally or (actually) personally liable for the woman’s death?
Waaay too early to make an intelligent prediction about one particular person’s liability. The actual, proven facts are crucial in this type of case - not just what she said, but in the context of what she did, and what others around her said and did. One sound clip just isn’t enough info.
I would agree, but I’m not sure the details of the contest were provided to contestants prior to their arrival at the station: “Hold your wee for a Wii”… If I was a contestant, I might think they were going to have us all drink a pint and then wait to see who hadn’t peed by the end of the day. Instead, they were give 8 ounce bottles every 10 minutes, then larger bottles later on, until the dead woman drank almost 2 gallons. The risks didn’t seem to be communicated while they were there and they should have been explicit: “participating in this contest could result in serious harm or death.” That would have been “informed consent”. It’s still vague about what exactly contestants knew going into the contest.
Also, “water intoxication” does have symptoms of “intoxication”. By the time you really should stop, you’re too addle-brained to know you need stop.
There’s also the element of goading stupid/gullible people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do. It doesn’t seem they weren’t explicitly advised (or reminded) that the risks could be fatal. The DJs kept saying “they’ll puke before it gets dangerous”. A layperson who had barely heard of hyponatremia, if they’d heard about it at all, could take them at their word.
I’m all about personal accountability, but the radio sation created an unsafe competition (drink until physical distress), ignored basic safety by not constulting with doctors beforehand, and failed to render aid when contestants were showign signs of physical distress during activities they indicated they knew could be fatal.
Shows like Fear Factor generate massive stacks of paper consisting of medical exams, excruciating informed consent, waivers, psychological testing, etc. That would suggest that standard of practice requires at least a modicum of attention to risk and informed consent on the part of the sponsor.
Geez, what a mess. I was confused by something fairly unrelated in the article, though: Like most California radio stations, KDND’s broadcasting license expired on Dec. 1, 2005…
It was poorly written but I think they meant that having an expired license part of a normal process (end date and then a renewal period for comment from the public before the new one is granted) and not because of an earlier incident.
I’m really against frivolous lawsuits, and even against some not so frivolous lawsuits where the victim is largely responsible for his misfortune. I’ve stated my vitriol in this thread. However, in this case, I’m all for the lawsuit.
I’m not sure if people mentioned this case in the other thread, but there was a very well publicized case of a kid dying in a fraternity hazing incident in 2005 at Chico, which is only a 100 miles or so away from Sacramento. Granted, the situation was exacerbated by hypothermia, but I think the root cause of death was water intoxication.
I remember when I heard of the radio contest death, I thought, “Shit, not again!”.
