Mother of three dies for a Wii

[PirateMickey]

They have been playing the tapes all day today and one included the victim. She was one of two left and started complaining about a headache and nausea. The DJ's taunted her a bit, and then offered her a consolation prize of a couple of tickets to a concert if she quit. She took them up on the offer after they made it a second time.

The sad thing (in addition to her passing away) is that the DJ's were joking around about how serious water intoxification can be. Then one of them said, "don't worry about it, they all signed disclaimers!".

It was VERY sad to hear her on the radio, complaining about not feeling well, but then laughing about it. If she only would have realized how serious it was...

The attorney's are going to have a field day with this one.

[PirateMickey]

Originally Posted by Hyperbole

Either that radio station has the most incompetent legal team on the planet, or the DJ's never ran this idea past legal. Senseless, senseless, senseless.

I listen to a different Sac station, and they said that these stunts are common-place, and that the legal depts usually just make sure that disclaimers are signed prior to the event by all participants.

I know that they have had other contests like peep eating, milk chugging, smoking a pack of cigs the quickest, etc...

Water intoxification might not be common knowledge to the masses, but there was a hazing death recently that involved it at a nearby college, so it should have been fresh on the minds of the folks around here.

And during the live broadcast, there was plenty of mention about the seriousness of water intoxification. Folks were calling in to warn the DJ's as well. The DJ's pretty much blew them off and made a joke about it.

Who's laughing now???

[mousercise]

Originally Posted by PirateMickey

And during the live broadcast, there was plenty of mention about the seriousness of water intoxification. Folks were calling in to warn the DJ's as well. The DJ's pretty much blew them off and made a joke about it.

Who's laughing now???

That is terrible. I haven't heard any of the broadcast so it is shocking and sad to hear that they were actually aware of the risks and blew it off.

[lisaboo]

Originally Posted by mousercise

That is terrible. I haven't heard any of the broadcast so it is shocking and sad to hear that they were actually aware of the risks and blew it off.

I have heard the tapes being played on the news and it's even worse than you can imagine. Those DJ's thought they were cute, but it was disgusting.

[BlueSkyDriveBy]

Originally Posted by mousercise

That is terrible. I haven't heard any of the broadcast so it is shocking and sad to hear that they were actually aware of the risks and blew it off.

That's murder, or at the very least manslaughter. They knew the risks yet blew them off and actually joked about it. And continued to taunt the woman to keep going.

If these clowns aren't behind bars in the near future, there'll be no stopping other idiot DJs from dangerous promotional contests.

[hollywood1939]

They interviewed her and she mentions that her head hurt bad. The stations intern said that that happens when she's about to throw up. All they did was offer her Justin Timberlake tickets. So sad.

[Disney Wrassler]

The cast was fired.

[Princess Buttercup]

I heard on the news this morning that some of the Sacramento police are now calling it a homicide on the part of the deejays.

[Soulquarian]

Originally Posted by BlueSkyDriveBy

That's murder, or at the very least manslaughter. They knew the risks yet blew them off and actually joked about it. And continued to taunt the woman to keep going.

If these clowns aren't behind bars in the near future, there'll be no stopping other idiot DJs from dangerous promotional contests.

I don't think we should be holding the DJ's responsible. Similar stunts are held often on a variety of stations. From the audio I heard, it sounds like the DJ's did not think that the threat of death was a serious one.

There has to be some personal responsibility in this also. The woman should have checked what potential problems could have arisen from that much water intake. She wasn't forced to do anything.

I'm an advocate for personal responsibility, and I think the majority of the blame lies on her poor decision.

[Disney Wrassler]

The woman also signed a contract releasing them of anything that could possibly happen. She decided to keep going in the contest but they are the ones who forced her out of it hours before she died. So does that mean they could still be criminally punished?

[Tui]

Originally Posted by Soulquarian

From the audio I heard, it sounds like the DJ's did not think that the threat of death was a serious one.

They had doctors calling them, and telling them how badly it could go.

I agree with others in this thread, both parties are to blame. Though I should say a special shout out goes to the woman who died.

Seriously, if you have to go...GO! If I held it long enough where I started getting headaches, I'd recognize that as my body saying "Hey, you know what? I think you really need to take a piss right now" If you ignore these blatant warning signs, what the Hell are you expecting? This world is just getting full of more and more dumbasses.

[awesomemama]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164262.html

[tiggerfan]

Since I live near Sacramento and am a lawyer (pauses for boos and hisses).....

My initial reaction when I had not heard the tapes was to say this was just a sad story but that the radio station was not to blame.

However, having heard the tapes, knowing they were warned and made jokes about it and seemingly ignored the warnings, that makes me really reconsider.

From what I can tell they did nothing to really warn the contestants and had no medical staff on site. Although I don't do either corporate or personal injury law (though if you need a living trust package...) I would have certainly insisted they have at least a nurse on site to make sure all went ok.

So the station does seem partly liable.

However at the same time, it does seem that the woman left the station and died many hours later. So she does seem (with all due respect) to have some responsibility for not seeking medical help.

I hope the parties can reach a fair settlement that will compensate for the horrible loss but at the same time will take into account that she was a grown up and thus does share *some* responsibility.

[PirateMickey]

Well, here's no surprise...

The evening news announced that the family has retained an attorney for the civil action against the radio station. I'm sure he/she is already seeing dollar signs...

For the sake of the family, I hope they didn't sign with one of those "1-800-MY-ACHING-BACK" type shysters.

Sure, she shared responsibility, but the actions of those idiotic DJ's will make the pay-out HUGE!

[mousercise]

It looks like the sheriff is looking into this now http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070119/...r_intoxication . Can't believe it took them almost a week to decide this, earlier reports had said there would be no investigation. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see how this doesn't break some kind of law even if she did sign a waiver.