Wee for a Wii ends with mother's death

sad, but im not sure the Radio Stadio is liable....

surely its the womans fault for drinking bad water...

According to the guy quoted they were given a health warning.

yes but they also had no medical staff on hand during the stunt

Should have mixed in some gator-aide with the water.

It's all about the electrolytes.

I guess kids can now complain when their parents say "Just hold it in, it's not gonna kill you" :(

- Drinking lots of water: relatively harmless

- Holding it in: relatively harmless

But mixing the two together is deadly, unfortunately.

I wouldn't say anyone should be liable, this is just one of those unfortunate things that happen.

Aggies

sad and pretty dumb IMO, on the part of the woman, if you know you have issues don't do things you cant, and the station because they did not have any medical staff on hand.... even if they were not counting on that.... and another thing... is it even possible for this to happen to a healthy individual?

edit: wow did not see aggies11 post.... please explain "It's all about the electrolytes.".

Asking someone to drink massive quantities of water without urinating is just as lethal as asking them to drink massive quantities of vodka or other hard liquor, only likely more so because people dont realize the danger or potentially pass out as quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_poisoning

Absolutely idiotic stunt by the station, really they should be held accountable I think.

Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
and the station because they did not have any medical staff on hand

even if the radio station had meidcal personel on staff wouldnt have mattered because she left and died later at home, the medical staff that would have been there wouldnt have been able to do anything for her

and having put gatorade with that might have done her in even quicker with the fact that they were holding in the wee, too much potassium in the system

however, the radio station whether or not the radio station should be liable i couldnt say

Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
is it even possible for this to happen to a healthy individual?

Yes - an excess of pretty much anything will kill you, and water is no exception. Check out the Wikipedia link for more info (the Beeb also have an article).

It was more than just holding the water its is most likely due to the levels of urea in her body (more water means it will be re circulated as the bladder cannot contain it).

What a dumba*s, not the stations fault.

It was pretty dumb of the station to not take basic precautions and have medical staff, as well as check into any possible complications from drinking that much water. I'm sure those involved thought this was a harmless stunt. Today's legal system however, blames anyone who doesn't fully research and take all precautions. Let's not forget, the mother's own poor judgement is a major factor as well. My heart goes out to her family though, this is a tragic loss.

If they had any medical staff there, they would have stopped it. It's a shame that this sort of thing happens, because no doubt the radio station will be held liable. We used to play that game at school lunchtime, and no-one died. But it is much more dangerous than you think.

the simpsons taught me not to hold it in, after abe's kidneys blew up

in all seriousness i cant believe the radio station didnt do some in depth research on the dangers of this kind of stunt.
i'd say everyone involved is stupid, the station for running the competition and the people for being so greedy they'd risk their health for a games console

Supposedly water "intoxification" is caused by a change in electrolyte concentrations in the body. The body is a very sensitive system and requires various chemicals/agents to be within certain levels. When these levels change, the body has built in systems to try and keep them in the appropriate levels.

When you drink water, you increase the amount of water in the body, but unless you also consume electrolytes, the amount of electrolytes stays the same (or even lowers, if you sweat, etc). This means that the relative concentration goes down, which is the important number. The bodies natural reaction to restore this, is to get rid of the excess water (urinate). If you hold it in while drinking large quantities of water, you can seriously lower your electrolyte concentrations.

Low levels of electrolyte concentration apparently messes with the brain, causing the symptoms that the lady experience (headache, nausea, light headed-ness etc), ultimately leading in death.

If this is indeed what happened (based on the news info, it sounds likely), then she would have needed to maintain her electrolyte levels, by either getting rid of water (urinating), or taking in more electrolytes (eg. gatoraide).

The situation is made worse/sped up if your diet is naturally low in electrolytes (eg. a low sodium diet).

This is just a rough outline of the process. But basically the body runs on water, meaning that the level of water in your body is actually significant. Drink as much water as you want, but allow the body to naturally make the adjustments it needs (eg. urinate). Interfere with that process (holding it in), and the results can be unfortunate :/-

To be fair: any reasonable/average person probably would not have seen anything wrong with the setup, and would have been surprised by the results.

Aggies

It's a tragedy for sure, but pretty damn stupid. Somewhat similar to the stunt another radio station pulled, by asking people to donate their babies to the station for a day, in exchange for a PS3. To their shock, they were inundated with calls to take up this offer.

If I was in that situation though, I would have sat on a radiator and had several hair dryers blowing in my face. So, I'd constantly be sweating out the water I would have just drank, therefore I would be able to last a long time. But aside from that, is £180 really worth a life? No.

I just feel sorry for the woman's kids. Because she wanted to win them a console, they no longer have a mother.

darwin awards??

i don't get this

i assume she was at the radio station, she did the competition, and then left
Now is it just me who would go and urinate once i completed the competition ? which would probably allow her body to get back to normality .... (well kinda)

the way its being told so far, makes it sound like shes lost, gone home, died and never urinated ?

Originally Posted by plug_in_ross
If I was in that situation though, I would have sat on a radiator and had several hair dryers blowing in my face. So, I'd constantly be sweating out the water I would have just drank, therefore I would be able to last a long time. But aside from that, is £180 really worth a life? No.

the way I'm reading it that would make things worse, when you sweat you sweat out your salts, so if you sweat more, your going to make the situation worse

... stupidity at it's finest

It surely is the station's fault. Not the contestant's. It's their responsibility to understand that drinking too much water can kill you. It's extremely unreasonable to assume that your average person knows and understands their limits when drinking large quantities of water and be able recognise the symptoms in time.

randosome, your kidneys can only process water a certain volume of water over a given period of time. This Strange woman probably had a wee (and hence lost the contest), went home, went again and then died as a result of the still very low concentrations of salt in her blood. Going for a wee doesn't replenish those lost salts. They are lost after the water has passed through the kidneys.

I wish people would inform themselves about water poisoning before blaming this on the contestant. Personally, I blame Nintendo. They shouldn't have given their console such a bloody silly name. :p

Strange, who was found dead on Friday afternoon in her home had left the radio station in Sacremento in tears after she’d failed to win the competition. She complained of a terrible headache to her employers.

A) She failed to win, um, I assume in failing to win she either wet herself or what?
B) She complained to her employers of headaches? So, she went to work after the competition? So she didn't pee in all this time?

I can sit in a Cinema for a 3hour film, and not pee, but the second I move I have to go then and there, because it really is too painful to hold on.

I can only assume that this was caused by (as mentioned above) a chemical imbalance, rather than not peeing or drinking so much as too effectivly drown.

The radio station could be found responsible, if they didn't make clear the effects of taking part, but I failed to see any Time data, ie the compo was Monday, she died Friday...

I personally don't find the mother at fault here. She did it out of love for her kids, not for the console. Just stating this to put into light that society hasn't exactly reached it's time where others are willing to sacrifice their lives completely for a game system(and let's hope it doesn't ever come to that). Just to be redundant, remember she took on the contest to get a Wii "for her kids". I will agree that the station is at blame here in correspondence to Snafu-X-'s post. Truly though this is a sad tale to tell and I hope that the station compensates the family, especially for the children's sake. Also that everything is put to justice.

Now I studied this in Biology last year. Every substance has an LD50, or how much of that substance is a lethal dose to 50% of any given sample of people. For water its approximately 8 litres. What happens is your body cells become too full of water, and start to burst. This obviously is dangerous, and in many cases, lethal. My guess is thats about how much water she drank.

I blame the radio station for that one, it's a bloody stupid thing to do, and they should've looked this up beforehand.

This is the stations fault. You cant have some one drink that much water, with out giing them some kind of electrolites, salt, or potasium. When you drink water it is absorbed throught the linning of your stomach, and i your kidneys cant keep up with the job of processing that water it, enters the blood stream and dilutes the amounts of disolved sugars, salts and potasium in the blood, caussing those compunds to be drawn out of the cells, unfortunitly with out thouse sugars and salts the cells die, and with out the potasium your musscles can not function as their zachomier unites will not contract, basicly you get headaches, dizzyness and then you can have a heart attack or stroke out because you arnt pushing o2 rich blood around your body.


The station should have know this, there are a number of cases of people dieing from drinking to much water. Their health warning, dosent mean anything if they said stop i you feel sick, these effects would have manafested affter the contest. THey shold have given them a couple o bannanas and some gateraid during the stunt, then everyting would have bee ok.

I think responsibility has to lie with the station here. Given the number of people who've expressed surprise that this could happen, station included, the woman couldn't have been expected to know.
Of course, she could have done her research, but why would you without even the idea of risk and a large media organisation actually suggesting it?

The media hold a position of power and trust; with that comes responsibility. Whether this should be the case is for another discussion entirely.

Originally Posted by Spaceraver
darwin awards??

Agreed.

I think it is safe to assume that most people probbably did not know you could die from drinking too much water. Also, really doubt the radio station did much research to find out how dangerous the contest really was. If my two assumptions are true then I would definitely find the radio station responsible.

I don't believe you can claim the woman was greedy. She assumed the contest was safe (and I believe many other people would have thought the same). If I had a chance to compete in a safe and free contest I would enter the contest, and I imagine many other people would too.

L J

When I first saw the title of this article I was afraid someone hit their mother in the head with a Wiimote and knocked her off a balcony or something.

This is very sad that people were unaware that drinking too much water is bad for you (doesn't anyone remember that episode of House where that boy had this same problem?) and I think the blame rests on both the station and the woman. She shouldn't have waited so long/not gone to the hospital/done the stunt in the first place, and the radio station should know better than host a contest involving something with an obvious potential danger.

Originally Posted by specofdust
Agreed.

Disagreed! :p

See, I thought Darwin at first... but yeah, I think I am gonna go against the station. Thinking about it, I used to use the "even water is poisonous in high enough doses" line when I was younger & even more of a precocious **** than I am now to surprise people - and, more often than not, it did. Not just dumb people, either.

On the part of the station, however, I would've thought purely in the interests of their own insurance liability this would have been looked into.
Any challenge that has ANY kind of "endurance" aspect is going to be pushing some area of the body towards a limit.

Right, I'm off to the bathroom, I can count 4 recently-emptied beer bottles lined up on my desk and suddenly I don't wanna hold it in any longer ;)

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
I just feel sorry for the woman's kids. Because she wanted to win them a console, they no longer have a mother.

This is the only thing that that matters. Why are we wasting time discussing blame? Making snide remarks about darwin ********. A life is gone, forever. A child has just had the most important person in their whole life taken from them. Many more lives have been altered for the worse, forever. Some things, you never get over. Yet we sit here blathering on about this. Reading this thread, my own post included, makes me a little sad for the world we live in.

Without a doubt this is the stations fault. They should have made sure it was safe before making people do this. I would bet money that (before this happened) only a very small % of people knew drinking that much water could be fatal. Hell, water is commonly believed to be one of those things where you can't get enough of it.

Before doing ANY type of contest that requires the contestant to push their bodies to extreme limits, they should have consulted some kind of medical professional to make sure it was safe first.

To be honest, I never knew water in extreme amounts could be dangerous, and I doubt many of the people here on this site knew it could kill you. This is a really sad story and I feel especially bad for those kids. Imagine the guilt they must be going through. Imagine the memories they will have every time they see a Nintendo Wii.

Quite literally dying for a wii :D

Originally Posted by JADS
Quite literally dying for a wii :D

Some people are bound to insist that's in poor taste, but ROFL :D

http://www.nintendorevolution.ca/01172007/22/nintendo_wii_water_radio_hosts_fired



L J