Criminal Stupidity

A Sacramento morning radio show decides it would be just hilarious to conduct a ‘Hold Your Wee For A Wii’ competition, whereby contestants will be forced to drink bottles of water at regular intervals without peeing, hoping to win a Nintendo Wii.

The DJs contemplate, on air, during the competition, that you can actually die from ingesting too much water.

One suggests that maybe they should have done some research.

Another argues that as the body is 98% water, you should be able to ingest as much as water as you like.

A third jokes that they’ve all signed releases.

The guy who thinks the body is 98% water then asserts - from his obvious vast repertoire of medical knowledge - that if you drink too much water you’ll vomit (and be out of the competition) before any harm can come to you.

A listener calls in and explains that you can, in fact, die from water intoxication. Medical Boy casually rebuffs her with his vomit-before-harm theory.

During the competition they ask the guy who’s supervising the the competition whether anyone’s dying there yet. He jokes ‘we’ve got one guy about to die here!’. The reply, ‘Make sure he signs a release!’.

It’s a terrible shame that the station never sought any medical advice, despite recognising a potential risk, and that no medical staff were on hand to supervise the competition.

One of the finalists was 28 year old Jennifer Strange.

By the end of the competition she was complaining that her head was hurting. She was reassured that this was perfectly normal. She said, immediately after dropping out of the competition:

“they keep telling me though that it’s the water, that it will tell my head to hurt and then it will make me puke.”

The DJs laughed at her appearance during the post-event interview, telling her she looked terrible and that her stomach was so distended that she appeared to be notably pregnant.

It’s surely criminally negligent that she was given eronneous medical advice and that at no time was she provided with, or enjoined to seek, medical attention.

The pain she was feeling was her brain swelling against her skull as she’d ingested seven and a half litres (two gallons) of water.

A few hours later she collapsed and died from water intoxication.

She was a mother of three who had entered the competition for her kids.

In the latest reports, the Sacramento Sheriff had handed the case over to homicide detectives after listening to a recording of the show.

Here’s a five minute audio clip of the salient parts. News reports in the local paper here and here.

Ten people have been sacked. Here’s hoping for criminal charges.