I would think the media attention alone must have been fairly overwhelming - hearing over and over again about how you screwed up can’t be fun. Especially if you’re already stressed, and I’d imagine the run-up to Christmas is quite a busy time for hospitals anyway.
Poor, poor woman. I hope the hospital put in place some serious support for its staff, especially if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are going to be using this hospital regularly.
Really though, for her to kill herself indicates there may have been something wrong upstairs to begin with. But I’m still glad I’m not those DJs.
:eek:
That poor woman.
I notice that the 2dayfm website is still promoting the ‘Biggest Royal Prank Ever’ on their front page, and still has the audio of the call available. (It’s the middle of the night in Australia). Wow, does somebody need to take that page down asap- the comments thread is developing into one huge shitstorm.
Bloody hell, that’s awful news. 
The twitter accounts of the DJs have been deleted, so someone’s awake…
MI-6 is thorough.
Even though it is the middle of the night there, I bet none of the people involved are still asleep.
In other news and an example of how to use your website with a bit more compassion, I see that the Duke and Duchess have issued a statement
I feel terribly sorry for the dead woman’s family.
It seems that the call came in at 5:30 am, and so there was no-one on reception, and she was nearby and picked the call up.
Geez, talk about your rotten luck.
Yup.
I take back my original judgement of this prank as “brilliant”
I don’t necessarily agree with the assessment that she “must have had something wrong upstairs” - the media pressure and judgement from royal-lovers on her must have been unbearable.
It’s refreshing to see someone taking responsibility for their mistakes, though her self-imposed penance was … er, overly harsh. I’m extremely skeptical of the hospital’s statement that it was “supporting” her. I don’t know if there would normally be an official inquiry into the cause of a suicide, but if there is, the investigators should look into what kind of professional consequences she may have been threatened with.
I still think this was a huge failure by the security people hired to watch the Royal Family. It should have been made abundantly clear to ALL STAFF to avoid letting anyone visit, drop off gifts - or call in - without security clearance! I am assuming there was a guard or two near Kate? Did they not think it odd that some nurse was rattling off private information on the incoming line (and not a private cell phone number to a guard that could be verified?).
Seriously, even minor celebrities in hospitals are smart enough to let staff know NOT to take any incoming calls, etc.
The real guilty party is the head of security who was stupid enough to allow this prank to get that far. He/She is the person who should be fired on the spot, and most certainly not that poor woman who didn’t know any better, was fired and humiliated, and wound up suffering the consequences.
There’ll be a coroner’s inquest.
Oh, really, you think the head of security is sitting around screening all incoming calls to the hospital? What an utter waste of time that would be. Hospital staff are already trained on privacy issues – the only person who acted inappropriately (besides the pranksters) is the nurse who has now punished herself worse than anyone else would have.
I don’t see that anyone is really to blame here. Certainly the Australian DJs did something stupid and they never intended it to go this far. And as others have pointed out, the woman who killed herself may have had something else going on. Terrible circumstances, but I don’t think finger-pointing is going to accomplish much - I’m sure everyone involved feels bad enough.
Some Kate humor might be welcome this morning. (Completely unrelated to the Radio DJ prank).
The book suspended in the air was a clever touch. I like the Mac On cartoons.
Man, talk about your threads that veer off completely away from what you thought at the outset.