A California woman's death is being linked to her participation in a radio contest, the grand prize for which was a Nintendo Wii. Preliminary autopsy results indicate that 28 year old Jennifer Strange died of water intoxication. The contest? "Hold your Wee for a Wii." Contestants were given water at regular intervals in a no-pee-allowed endurance contest, and all to get their hands on a hard-to-find console.It seems fairly obvious what happened -- though we're not sticking out any pointy fingers of blame -- and the preliminary autopsy report is consistent with what seems as clear as the proverbial bell. Ms. Strange drank too much water too quickly, and she died. Not from "holding it," either. Water poisoning is a very real thing. Ingesting too much water can cause an imbalance in the body's electrolytes; in fact, this is one of the motivating factors behind the existence of the sports drink market.
The death of Ms. Strange is horribly tragic, and it's unfortunate that she will be linked with the Wii by doomsayers to whom no topic is sacred. But there is a real question regarding what measures the radio station took in this case to prevent any problems, and it's been reported that Jennifer Strange spoke of not feeling well before leaving the contest. We have yet to see any comment from Sacremento's KDND 107.9 on the matter.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-15-2007 @ 11:55AM
mykie said...
http://www.myextralife.com/archive.php?date=2007-01-15
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1-15-2007 @ 12:47PM
Spekkio said...
...there are no words.
...well, OK, there are - I wonder if anyone at the radio station will be held responsible for this idiocy.
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1-15-2007 @ 2:54PM
Phace said...
What is also tragic here is that, likely, this person died before she had a chance to actually play the system.
She died for the hype.
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1-15-2007 @ 3:01PM
Skippy said...
She was not even the winner of the contest.
The winner also reported feeling bad, but made a full recovery. The woman who died was quite petite so the amount of water had a bigger impact on her. One other contestant reported that you could see a noticable bulge in the woman's stomach from all the water.
Some people with the radio station are going to be in big trouble (or at least they should be). It only takes 2 seconds with Google to learn that drinking large amounts of water in a short time is NOT a good thing to do.
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1-15-2007 @ 3:13PM
Phace said...
Nothing is ever going to bring the girl back. It's so sad. No lawsuit will do. Money is irrelevant. Even getting a Wii would be ridiculous and unwanted. Jail time? At best this stunt was reckless. I'm fairly certain they didn't know that what they were doing was dangerous, but ultimately there is a criminal case here. Of course they didn't force anyone to do this, but they inspired/condoned/encouraged/sponsored it.
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1-15-2007 @ 4:56PM
withoutasol@yahoo.com said...
That is horrible, I feel terrible for her young kids. The radio station was very neglagent and should be held accountable.
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1-16-2007 @ 1:06AM
Tooie Kangaroo said...
So someone actually won the contest? Thats so stupid! The second the woman died, the whole contest should have been done away with! How irreverant can you be!
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1-16-2007 @ 7:20AM
Qwikstreet said...
Tooie,
The woman died after she left the contest and went home after she claimed feeling pain.
I've worked in the radio industry in the 90s and somewhat knows what happens after stupid stuff like this. First this was the promotions director's idea. Even if it wasn't it is still that person's job to sign off on the idea and make sure all is in place for it. That person will lose their job. Second, we might see that morning crew fired as well. Why you ask? Because they are the public figures and thats what we see and thats what will be reported. No one knows or cares about regular Joe the PD.
Water intoxication is not new. I hear at least one fraternity killing a pledge every year because of it. The station also can't claim "I didn't knows" because we have things called Google.com and WebMD.com.
From what I also heard no medical advisor was present and improper release forms.
Other ways they should of done the contest instead of water that fully dilutes your body. Gatorade. Or small doses of coffee. I don't know about you but one cup of coffee gets my bladder rolling.
I know money won't bring the mom back but too bad the station wasn't owned by Viacom of Clear Channel. Instead its owned by Entercom. I'm not sure how big they are but this stunt might but this company six feet under and wide open for a buyout.
So if there is a buyout not only will people at KDND 107.9 lose their jobs over this stunt alone but many other jocks and personnel will lose their jobs in a corporate takeover so the larger fish can bring in their cookie cutter stations or further syndicate high revenue shows.
I say syndicate Kidd Chris on that Sacremento station, they hated him there. With O&A in the morning.
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1-16-2007 @ 11:52AM
Alisha Karabinus said...
That's a shame that there will likely be a backlash that may affect OTHER people who weren't involved, but I do feel there was some pretty severe negligence here myself. I feel bad for her family... and those kids may never play video games again.
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1-16-2007 @ 4:18PM
Jackson Pritt said...
Everyone involved in this should be fired, and whoever was directly in charge should go to trial for involuntary manslaughter. The station should be taken off the air and forceably sold by the government, with the proceeds going to the woman's family.
The station is directly to blame for this by encouraging stupidity. Since it was their idea and they set it up, the contestants had every right to assume that the station would not encourage them to do anything life-threatening.
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