Sacramento DJs joked as contestant guzzled fatal quantity of water

There were lots of reasons to think Jennifer Strange was in deep trouble after she spent hours guzzling in a water-drinking contest at a Sacramento radio station.

"I asked her, 'How do you feel?' " said Elidia Campos, one of 20 contestants. "She said, 'Oh, my God. I feel so awful, I'm about to pass out.' ''

But the DJs at KDND-FM apparently figured that was her problem, wasn't it? It was her choice to enter Friday morning's contest. The hosts can be heard joking on an audiotape of Friday's show about how Strange's stomach was distended from drinking nearly 2 gallons of water, and they teased her and other contestants because they did not "look so good."

Told by another DJ that "We got a guy who's just about to die," one of the jocks had a quick response. "Make sure he signs the release," he chortled, setting off gales of laughter in the studio.



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/18/MNGMMNKOHS1.DTL

What makes people do stupid stuff like this anyway?

i don't think a lot of people know about Water Intoxication. unitl it was in the Sunday NYT magazine about a year ago, it had never occurred to me that a person would voluntarily drink 2 gallons of water, let alone die from it.

and a lot of "funny" radio personalities seem willfully ignorant of topics outside of money, sex, and pooping. like politics, the law, science, logic, taste, decency, et cetera, ad infinitum.

It's scary as hell. I suppose if the radio station was going to do this contest they should have talked to doctors about what could go wrong by drinking too much water.

I never knew this could happen.

The DJ's just laughed and stated that they signed a release and the station wouldnt be liable.
Assholes should be in jail.

Anytime you hold a contest that involves people and any kind of eating or drinking, at the VERY least there should be a doctor on site and consulted.

Doctors are involved at eating contests that are held in the U.S.

They are guilty of negligent homicide.

There were a few residents who had to be watched carefully because, if given the opportunity, they would head for a drinking fountain or sink and drink themselves into a stupor.

Occasionally when they are admitted to acute care, I have seen them have to turn the water off to that room and put a lock on the bathroom door that can only be opened by nursing staff because they will drink the toilet water.
See: Hyponatremia.

intoxication death at Chico state, it was a frat hazing and it was literally all over the news for weeks in painstaking detail.

they're too busy working on their careers!

I read in another article that 10 of them got fired from the station. I think it's deserved.
A nurse apparently called in, too, to warn them about water intoxication and only got ridiculed I think.

All in the quest for ratings, no doubt. Sick, sick, sick. We have a very sick society today, where death, violence, and greed are tolerated at an incredible level.

The DJs at the station should have been fired. Especially given that a Nurse called to warn them of the consequences. What a shame.

The FCC should pull the station's license if they put something on the air that got someone killed. It's obvious there was no control over the people who used the station's facilities and the station management is negligent in this regard because their lack of control resulted in a listener's death.

for the actions of their employees.

Pull their ticket.

These guys are the most desperate of all the entertainers in our culture. They want ratings and nothing more. They haven't an intrinsic sense of morality or humanity. Heck, even Howard Stern has limits, and even thoughts once in a while. These guys don't.

But think about the people who support such louts; the station management. Freed of the ideas of community responsibility and fairness to all viewpoints, what else are they going to do but go for the abusive and outrageous? Even if it means people dying? It's all for profits for the megacorporations that own them, and who can argue with that in Bush's America?

That said he placed money (I can't remember how much)in a random book in the Ft. Worth library.
Needless to say...the library was all but destroyed while someone looked for a small amount of cash.
http://community.livejournal.com/libraries/2005/07/05/

How too much water can kill

What happens with too-much-water is a consequence of the drive to maintain osmotic equilibrium (see sidebar 'osmotic equilibrium'). Water is quickly absorbed from the gut into blood stream, and when it gets to the capillaries it quickly moves into the cells' exterior milieu, called the interstitium (interstitial fluid and blood plasma are the two components of extracellular fluid). Interstitial fluid now becomes dilute relative to that inside cells, so water moves into cells until the osmolality in the cell, interstitium and blood plasma are all equal. Water movement into cells causes them to swell, which is particularly problematic in the brain because the skull is almost completely closed, allowing very little room for expansion. Consequently the symptoms and illness of too-much-water are those of brain dysfunction (hyponatremia encephalopathy): change in mental status, sensory distortion, confusion, incoordination, bizarre behavior; and ultimately seizures, coma and death. Normally excess water ingestion does not lead to such drastic consequences, because the excess water is very rapidly excreted by the kidneys. Only when fluid ingestion exceeds the ability of the kidneys to excrete it do plasma and interstitial osmolality fall sufficiently to cause problematic degrees of cell swelling.

--more--
Overhydration does not equal good hydration

I remember hearing about this in a high-school science class some 40 years ago. The teacher talked about...you guessed it...a water-drinking contest in which one of the participants died. This radio station needs to be held accountable for this brainless stunt. Even Guinness has discontinued some categories from its record book because of potential harm or danger to the health and safety of those tempted to set a "world record." You would think in this day and age such idiocy like that displayed by this radio station would be trumped by common sense and experience.

The DJs sound like real SOBs as well. They must've missed "too much water" day in their science class. And they certainly missed any education and experience about humanity, empathy, and understanding.

Duplicate of post 11.

such a stunt.

they will stop laughing.

for manslaughter.