Impaired judgement is virtually unavoidable with water intoxication. “Why didn’t she stop on her own?” is an invalid argument.
As usual, Dopers can’t agree on whether the risk of death from water intoxication is common knowledge. Bobotheoptomist cited a case in which med techs forced water on a marathon runner, with unfortunate (but not lethal) results.
Is it possible that the radio station, their parent company, and so forth, were not in the category of people who say “You can die from drinking too much water; everybody knows that”? So many of these contests center around humilation. It’s possible that they figured the biggest risk was embarrassment because someone might wet hirself; I can see that being enough of a challenge from their POV. But this was a mother of three, so she probably had a sturdier bladder than the people she outlasted. 
They probably quit before they started getting intoxicated, but Strange was able to go beyond the point of degradation, and that’s when it started getting dangerous.
Per my post in the other thread, I think the best way to “win” these contests is just not to get into them.
If I were on the jury I’d be thinking in the 100s of millions of dollars for an award: enough to put the entire radio network out of business.
I believe pretty much everyone I know would have realised that this was a potentially lethal stunt; it makes me almost weep to think how easily this could have been averted. Possibly here in the UK we’re more familiar with hyponatraemia due to the widely publicised case of Leah Betts, but I’m still amazed that no-one involved had the slightest inkling of trouble, let alone a single person listening to the station.
It’s just so fucking pointless.
I have to admit when I heard this, I thought,“who in the hell would authorize THAT??”…but then I thought about where I learned about water intoxication-
This hazard was common knowledge in the ecstasy fueled club scene of 1998-2002…more than a few people had died from drinking too much water at a party or in a club or wherever. I guess you can’t really expect the general public to know about it if it isn’t a significant risk that they would ever encounter.
How the contest got past the station’s legal department, I’ll never know.
For what it’s worth, and I’m betting it’s not worth much, I was aware of water intoxication but I thought it was an extremely rare occurance and unlikely to happen in most situations. I mean really, how many people die each year from overhydration?
Marc
So, is there no responsibility on the woman’s part? I know damn well that if Evil Captor wanted me to enter a contest to jump on hand grenades, before I agreed to it I’d Google “hand grenade” and find out the risk. Nobody forced this woman to do anything. She entered a dangerous contest of her own accord. That doesn’t make the results any less tragic, but “The DJ said it was OK, I’m gonna sue” is an awful weak argument to make. If a DJ tells you he’ll give you the new Jessica Simpson album if you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and you do it, whose fault is it when they fish your body out of the East River, yours or his?
What a bad situation. I really do feel for the children of the woman who died. That said, I think some of the opinions in this thread are a bit over the top starting with the title. “Tricks?” You make it sound like the station was out to kill people. This situation is terrible enough without the histronics.
Why don’t you just call them Hitler-fuckers and get it over with?
Was it a stupid contest which should have been run better (ie Having medics on hand)? Yes. Should the family sue? Yes. Should the station be put out of business? No. This was an accident. Some heads should roll, but let’s not go crazy.
They should have known about the dangers of overhydration and had medical staff on hand and a cut off point where no more fluids would be given.
Yes, there is but there is more responsibility on the part of the people running the contest. Honestly, who’d think that too much water could kill someone outside of a Roman torture chamber, fill his belly til it bursts sense. I didn’t know that until this past summer. I’m a runner and fairly well-educated. Even knowing that I may not have put too much water before a race and too much water while seated together. Fortunately it isn’t my job to may those calls. The radio station should have someone in that role.
Sure, but all adults know hand grenades are inherently dangerous objects. As others have already pointed out in this thread, though, most folks do not associate drinking water to be a dangerous activity, and most folks are not familiar with “water overdose” as a risk.
Which isn’t to say that the woman was not without some fault, but to shrug away the incident as “boo freakin’ hoo, she should’ve known better” is… well, about what I’d expect from you, actually.
Are you seriously equating jumping on a hand grenade with drinking water? You don’t think most people would perceive a vast difference in degree of danger between the two? You seriously think that drinking lots of water constitutes a clear, obvious, and widely known danger?
Wow, thanks rjung. You expect me to advocate for personal responsibility. I never knew you noticed. I’m touched. Seriously, thank you.
Of course! People who practice “personal accountability” know everything about everything! THey don’t need the government, or scientists, or doctors, or experts in any field to tell them anything - they can do enough research online or at the library to have just as well-rounded an understanding of any subject as those meddlesome nanny “experts”.
Excuse me, but WTF are you talking about?
Oh, I dunno - not necessarily you, I suppose; I just watched some show where Orrin Hatch was talking about how we didn’t need regulations or tests on alternative/herbal medicines, because the American people were perfectly capable of making up their own minds about what treatments they used, and blah blah blah. Then they paraded a bunch of Libertarian-leaning talking heads ranting on and on about the “big brother” government trying to monitor what chemicals go into our food and pharmacological products, etc. etc., the whole time using “personal responsibility/accountability” as a buzzword. So the phrase set me off. My apologies if you didn’t use it in such a rabid manner. But your equating drinking a lot of water with jumping on a hand grenade or off a bridge seemd to point in that direction. The latter are, I daresay, pretty much universally recognized as fatal. The former I’d wager not nearly as much.
Obviously, you are suffering from severe brain damage, so I’ll go easy on you: I never said anything about putting the station out of business.
I don’t feel much sympathy for the mother (the kids, sure). Forget if she or the radio station’s lawyers should have known that this stunt could be dangerous, it’s a goddamned video game console! Period, fucking paragraph. Yes, I know that it’s “hot” and “in demand.” Big, fat, hairy, fucking deal. If you haven’t got the cajones (or ovaries) to tell your brats that they can damn well wait until the things become readily available and that if they don’t stop pestering you for one, they’ll never get one, then you shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
That being said, if the radio station didn’t have medical people standing by to check these dunces out, then they should be sued until they’re forced to sell their transmitting tower for scrap to pay off the judgement against them.
I’d like to see the FCC pull the station’s license. Whatever happened to “operating in the public interest”?
IIRC, that died during the Reagan Administration.
That episode that you refer to was probably based upon a real-life fraternity hazing incident that occurred at Cal State University, Chico, which is just up the road from Sacramento where this latest tragedy happened. The hazing incident occurred just two years ago and received alot of local press coverage in the Sacramento area. Here’s an article with the details at the time of the death. Four frat boys involved plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and the incident spurred the passage of legislation making hazing that results in bodily injury a felony which was just signed into law by The Governator.
Now, given a recent, local, and well-known example of how dangerous the over-consumption of water can be, it boggles the mind that the radio station carried through with this stunt, much less that the woman agreed to participate in it.