Woman Killed In Wii-Related Competition

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.'"

Comments

Mmm...

[EinZweiDrei]

What a stupid world.

Re:Mmm...

[dr_dank]

Actually, it looks like her family won themselves a radio station...

Killed??

[celardore]

A woman wasn't killed, she died as a result of self induced water intoxication. It's a difference that means a lot. The headline makes it sound like a sport killing of some kind. Would have been more appropriate to say "Woman dies In Wii-Related Competition".

Re:Killed??

[GiovanniZero]

This title is completely ridiculous. It's sensationalist and makes it look like someone died using the Wii. The womans death has nothing to do with a Wii, it could have been a competition for anything.

Re:Killed??

[Iamthefallen]

She was killed by her own stupidity

If we're picking words, then I'd say she was killed by her ignorance, not stupidity.

If she knew that excess water consumption can kill you, then yes, she was stupid and the station doesn't have a liability.

But did she know that? Did the station inform her? Did the station know? When she started to feel sick, is it reasonable to expect her to go to the emergency room just for drinking water? And even if she had, was it already too late at that point?

I just have questions, not answers, but I also reserve judgment until the details are known.

Re:Killed??

[BSAtHome]

However, ignorance is no defence. Stressing your body always incurs a serious risk.

Re:Killed??

[theGil]

I agree. The darwinaward tag made me frown...not everyone knew it could be fatal.

Re:Killed??

[roscivs]

I'm surprised (on some level) that a soldier listening to the station didn't call to say it was a bad idea.

Actually, some reports are saying that a nurse called in and warned that drinking too much water is dangerous. See http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16466174.htm for example.

Gina Sherrod, who competed with Strange in the contest, said her family listened to the radio show, and told her that a nurse was on air warning that drinking too much water is dangerous. Sherrod said a DJ rebuffed the nurse, saying the contestants signed waivers that addressed only publicity issues and made no mention of health or safety concerns.

For that reason, I think the studio should be held liable.

Re:Killed??

[alta]

I agree with all your statements. Add to this the fact that most people don't get ENOUGH water, and are told to drink MORE water, this just makes it worse. As a whole, I think the population is problably more dehydrated than over hydrated. Look at how much coke, tea and coffee the we (U.S.) drink, compared to just plain water.

Re:Killed??

[jafiwam]

Yes, and every poor sap that gets hit by a beer truck chasing his poodle across the road is also an "alcohol related traffic accident". (Unless the truck is empty at the time.)

The headline is misleading not in that it is inaccurate, but in that it lets someone draw the wrong conclusion about what it is saying. Excusable only if there is no other way to say the same thing without the unintended implication.

"Killed in Wii-related competition" sounds like she was next to some fat geek swinging the controller around and he hit her breaking her neck. "Wii-related" is only really means "during it's normal intended use".

The headline is more suitable for Fark, not here.

Re:Killed??

[BakaHoushi]

Plus, it's rather inaccurate. By definition, a Darwin Award is given to someone by "helping to ensure their genes do not get passed on." This woman had three kids. Her genes are already out there. So, technically, she's already passed them on... you know, before SHE passed on.

Geeze... it sucks for her kids. To have their mother die, because of an idiotic stunt in order to make a urine joke. God, I'd hate to see their therapy bills when they get older.

Re:Killed??

[BakaHoushi]

I disagree. Nintendo should NOT be held liable in any way, shape, or form. If the death of this woman was DIRECTLY related to the use of a Wii (for example, the Wii-mote exploded because of direct contact with something) that'd be one thing. However, the reason for her death was only related to a competition. This competition's ONLY connection to Nintendo was that Nintendo sold these people a system, which they then offered as a prize in a publicity stunt.

If I offer you a new Honda Civic car if you'll run across a busy highway naked, and you get hit by a truck and killed, should HONDA be held responsible because they made their product "too desirable?" Fuck no. The only people who should be held accountable should be me for being an asshole, and you for being an idiot that listened to an asshole.

What about competitions that offer money as a reward? Should the U.S. mint be held accountable for people getting hurt while trying to earn money?

All I'm saying is, people want things. Always. They offered something for free, and someone died because of it. There is no harm in playing a Wii system. In that regard, Nintendo has done their job. There certainly IS, however, a danger in playing Russian Roulette for one. So, Nintendo has nothing to do with this. Only the woman and the radio station. So until a Wii itself hurts someone, and not what people would do for one (and those damn Klondike bars. *MY* great grandmother died because someone shot her for one...) Nintendo's clean.

Re:Killed??

[FeTrut]

Not only is it ridiculous to assume that she had *enough* facts, but the tone of your entire post is insulting and for lack of a better term, soulless.
There are 3 children out there who just lost their mother due to a competition noone would have expected could end in death and you see fit to call her stupid and issue glib remarks like "Lady 3 - Darwin 0". I'm sorry, but i find that a bit disgusting.

With regard to her supposed stupidity, the keyword is expected. It's not enough to know that you *could* die from something. I know i could die driving home today, even greater chance because the roads are snowy and icy. If someone veers out of control and hits me on the highway and i die, am i to be called stupid because i decided to drive today? I don't expect to, and neither do the hundreds of thousands of other people out driving.

It seems a lot of people, and me included, before today assumed that drinking a lot of water results in the side effect of needing to pee really bad.

Eating competitions are a widespread recognized sport these days, you don't see Kobayashi dying from eating 50 hot dogs, why should anyone *expect* to die from drinking a lot of water?

The symptoms afterwards were, as far as i know, a bad headache. Well hell, i'd go home and pop and asprin, the last thing i'd be thinking is i need to be hospitalized.

I guess i'm stupid too.

Re:Killed??

[MoriaOrc]

If you knew you were going to be in a snail eating contest, wouldn't you do a bit of research beforehand to make sure there were no dangers before doing it?

Similarly, if you were going to hold a snail-eating contest, wouldn't you want to do some research to make sure it wasn't going to put all your participants lives at risk?

I think it could reasonably be argued that most of the contestants expected the people running a contest, or another public event, would have done this kind of research and so would have ignored doing it for themselves (if it even crossed their minds to do some research). The mere fact that someone is publicly holding a contest where snails are eaten implies that (though in this case obviously not correctly) it is safe to eat large quantities of snails or else the company or people sponsoring this contest would not be holding it.

Re:Killed??

[avdp]

I agree.

Let's look at another contest show involving extreme acts. Fear Factor. These people do seemingly incredibly dangerous and/or stupid things: balancing on beams at incredible heights, underwater stunts, staying in boxes with snakes, spiders, etc - either the grossest things. But the truth of the matter is that the venomous animals aren't, the stuff they eat are gross, but safe, they are wearing harnesses at those heights, and there are divers with oxygen tanks ready to give it to the contestant if the first signs of distress. This contest is safe, well researched and the contestants know it, expect it and they have ever right to.

This station screwed up big time. And you can be sure they know it, just bracing for the civil lawsuit or even a criminal indictments. There defense will be we didn't know, or we wouldn't have done it. We'll see how far that gets them.

Re:sheesh

[yagu]

My point is/was that to the casual observer (and contestant), signing a waiver and being "warned" (I didn't see anything in the article to suggest they warned how dangerous this was) would seem a mere "standard" formality and for the purposes of participating in a water-drinking contest, absurd. But, the radio station, as I pointed out, with minimal research should have known going in this was dangerous and not even hosted this contest.

The only difference I see between this and a contest where contestants drink as much alcohol as possible to win a Wii is that to the common man, dangers and risks associated with alcohol are much more widely known and understood. And, no radio station in the world would get away with having contestants drink alcohol in a similar fashion, waivers and warnings or not.

Re:sheesh

[TeraCo]

IIRC (we had a private die in training a few years ago with this sort of thing), the symptoms that you're coming down with water related death include becoming thirsty.

Yeah, that's an easy one to read.

A nebulous "quit if you feel sick" warning isn't good enough when she could have done the harm before she started to notice any dangerous side effects.

Re:"Sue into the poorhouse"?

[Skyshadow]

I'm trying to understand your comment, and I see three possibilities. Either:

(a) You believe this woman intentionally got herself killed in order to collect easy money from the radio station.
(b) You don't believe that the radio station, which set the rules of this contest and provided enticement for people to participate, was at all negligent in not exploring the possible injuries that could result from it.
(c) Your comment had nothing to do with this case, you just have a problem with lawsuits in general.

Assuming (c), I feel like I should point out that, given the facts as we currently understand them, this would hardly be a frivolous lawsuit. The radio station was clearly negligent in not exploring the hazards of what they were encouraging people to do and, although you may not think it's fair, they have an obligation under the law to do so.

Furthermore, the example you cited with the GPS, aside from sounding like an obvious urban legend, doesn't actually map to this situation. Anyone with a driver's license should know that you look before you turn your car, but understanding the risks of this sort of contest would require some basic medical training. It is therefore reasonable to expect a driver to look before turning and not reasonable to expect the average person to understand the health risks of this sort of activity.

Which is, ultimately, why we as a society have lawsuits like this. The radio station was obligated to do their due-diligence before enticing people into this behavior. And that's why they're going to get clobbered by the lawsuit that will come from this.

Re:Scumbag

[x2A]

"You find this so funny you pissed yourself?"

Actually it was just another play on the 'wii' bit... seriously, you can't actually pass out from too much irony ya know.

"Then you moan and cry about the moderation you got from your sorry ass comment?"

Troll, flamebait, overrated, I would have been fine with. But off topic? It's just not true.

"I hope when a moment of extreme sorrow comes into your life"

Been there, done that. Everyone deals with things in different ways dude, and death, being one of the hardest things to deal with, introduces even wider ways of being dealt with than most other things we experience. You can't spend your whole life crying, you get nowhere, and may as well not be alive yourself. So you laugh, about some funny word or whatever, it doesn't matter, and hope it does make you insensitive, at least a little more than you'd usually be, because you can't cope if you soak up every little bad thing that happens.

It doesn't make you an arsehole, it just means you're trying to survive the best you can in a world where shit happens.

You'll understand as you get older. Or you'll get crushed by the weight of the world.