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Woman Killed In Wii-Related Competition

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the natural-selection dept.

snuffin writes to tell us that a local radio competition to "hold your wee for a Wii" has ended with a Sacramento woman dead from water poisoning. From the article: "An Associated Press interview with another contestant, named James Ybarra, claimed that contestants were initially given eight ounce bottles of water to drink every fifteen minutes, with larger bottles being used once contestants began to drop out. According to Ybarra, 'They told us if you don't feel like you can do this, don't put your health at risk.' He described the victim as 'a nice lady' and that 'she was telling me about her family and her three kids and how she was doing it for her kids.'"

8 of 784 comments (clear)

  1. sheesh by yagu · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is not some mysterious malady. The radio station is off the scale negligent for putting contestants in the position of potential serious harm:

    I'd had this argument many times with a friend about my water intake. I've always known my intake was fine (hint: coffee counts...), but in the course of that discussion I found many articles on the problems one could encounter by drinking too much water.

    I won't claim any person on the street should know the dangers of drinking too much water, but the people putting on this contest (sorry, stunt) could have recognized they were in deep waters with a modicum of research.

    I'm not much for lawsuits, but I hope the radio station that put on this stunt makes significant remedy to the lady's family.

    1. Re:sheesh by phasm42 · · Score: 5, Informative
      This article has more details; they say that a nurse had called during the contest to warn them about it:

      During the contest, a nurse called in to the station warn of the dangers of drinking too much water quickly. Her worries were dismissed by the disc jockey, The Bee reported.
      They also mention that the winner felt pretty sick afterwards as well.
      --
      "No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
  2. Re:Killed?? by celardore · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a bit harsh to call it stupidity; water poisoning isn't that well known. It is a condition that is known by users of the ecstasy community though, especially after Leah Betts, a case that happened in the UK some years back. I've known several people in this lifestyle and they were always conscious of the amount of water they were drinking - even when high as a kite. Not too much, but not too little either.

    The knowledge is out there, just whether you've heard it or not.
  3. Re:Man, even water can kill you! by leathered · · Score: 5, Informative

    Other risks come from the chlorine put in tap water to stop bacteria from growing - well the bacteria in your guts you kind of need, for digestion etc. Boiling the water first evaporates off the chlorine, otherwise, you're disinfecting yourself everytime you drink it, an accumulative effect.,

    Speaking as a former water scientist, this is complete BS. The residual levels of chlorine in drinking water in the UK are minimal, usually no more than 1 mg/l, and are maintained as a precaution to prevent contamination in the ditribution system. There is no way that this amount is capable of destroying bacteria in the gut, and chlorine being the highly reactive element that it is will combine with the first thing it finds when it hits your stomach and render it useless as a disinfectant.

    --
    For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
  4. There is a middle voice by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sorry, may be wrong here, but I thought passive (voice) verbs occurred when the subject of the sentence was not the one committing the action. To say that, "She died." is to say that she was the one undertaking the dying action, which is an action

    "She died" is middle voice, as are many other intransitive verbs in English. The active and passive voices of this clause are "She killed" and "She was killed". The forms "killed" vs. "died" show suppletion per voice in the same way that "go" vs. "went" show suppletion per tense.

  5. Complain to Their Advertisers by RedSynapse · · Score: 5, Informative
    The KDND website has a list of all the companies that advertise with them.

    I've put together the following email addresses of KDND's sponsors, so if you think that the folks at KDND are a bunch of negligent twits who probably don't deserve their advertising dollars then why not email these companies and let them know?

    Info@urban-body.com, hr@wyotech.com, smichaels@sierracollege.edu, foundation@sierracollege.edu, marc.goff@US.REDBULL.COM, cs_online@albertsons.com, lgradisher@jewels.com, mediarelations@officedepot.com, communityrelations@officedepot.com, corpcsf@wellsfargo.com, home.pa-newsroom.168d00@statefarm.com, admin@PowerTripBev.com, kburns@ckr.com, chopkins@ckr.com, customerservice@partsamerica.com, oshgift@osh.com, customerservice@tillys.com, info@heald.edu, info@louderlaw.com, dale@sleeptrain.com, webmaster@NissanUSA.com, joseph.l.goode@bankofamerica.com You can also contact KDND's general sales manager at fhormell@entercom.com

  6. Re:Mmm... by welshsocialist · · Score: 5, Informative

    From what I read, no. The winner was Lucy Davidson. She felt the same symptoms the victim felt. See here.

    --
    Support the Chagossians
  7. Re:Gatorade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why is this modded funny?

    There are two ways that Gatorade (or Powerade or most any sports drink) would be vastly superior to water. First, the sugar content in a sports drink raises the blood sugar, causing a feeling of satiation. It would be far more difficult to consume two liters of a sports drink than two liters of water (the amount that the lady drank). It's somewhat self-regulating. Second, the isotonic solution wouldn't disrupt the balance in electrolytes, which is the cause of death for this lady.

    The use of Gatorade would be safer, by far.