-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
I was quite upset reading this - what a horrible way to die. The last thing anyone heard from her was her crying on the other end of the telephone. She did it for her kids. HORRIBLE way to die too!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Wow, there's now end to the ways people can die. I've never heard of water intoxication. Sad that it was mother though, those kids will be traumatized beyond belief.
Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
So...did they give the kids the game or no? Five bucks says they only got one controller with it.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
another five says they got the fishing game with it.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I actually just read this story on the msn website about an hour ago. I knew that you could get sick from drinking too much water, and that it was used as a torture device in midieval times, but I didn't know you could die from it.
I don't think the DJ's knew either or they wouldn't have gone through with it. They must feel pretty rotten right about now.
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: Wow, there's now end to the ways people can die. I've never heard of water intoxication.
That's actually what kills a good number of the people who die at raves and such. They take Ecstasy, so they drink too much in too short a time, and the water leeches out the salts from their bodies. In the meantime, they're too out of it and having too much fun to notice or care.
-------------------- "Don't fight forces; use them." --R. Buckminster Fuller
Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Reminds me of Tycho Brahe. Supposedly he died because he refused to leave the table at a banquet to use the bathroom, thinking it bad manners. So his bladder ruptured and he died of massive infection.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Let's see if I can give a clearer summary of the events... seeing as it happened in my city...
The contest was held by one of our local radio stations... 107.9FM "The End". It was drinking as much water as you can without having to go to the restroom. If you do, you're disqualified. The last one remaining would win the Wii the station was giving away. The lady in question who had passed away was not the winner. She was the last one to drop out. Throughout the contest, the station did receive calls saying it could be dangerous. One call came from a nurse who specifically identified the danger as water intoxication. Station personnel and contest participants said they understood the danger even as station personnel said standard release forms were signed and so the station could not be held liable. However, audio from the contest suggests that everyone laughs off the potential danger, even the one who died. The lady who had died who had started to feel the effects told she could go on while personnel suggested that she stop. They didn't do anything further. Half an hour later, she left the contest and five hours after that had passed away. The morning radio show has been cancelled, 10 people from the station involved with the show, including the DJs were fired. The local sheriff's department has initiated an investigation and will pass on the findings to the DA's office even though there's little chance of a criminal lawsuit. A lawyers group has already filed a civil suit on behalf of the widower.
-------------------- Is it Friday yet?
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
My thoughts: It may have been a relatively stupid contest to offer, but I think it's reasonable to assume that all the participants were rational, thinking adults. Based on Dat's summary, it sounds like they were even aware of the danger. Therefore, it's the woman's own damn fault.
I'd say that she held her wee for that Wii a wee too long! (Sorry.)
-------------------- “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” — Isaac Asimov Star Trek Minutiae | Memory Alpha
Registered: Nov 2000
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
When has personal responsibility EVER prevented someone from suing? Don't you realize that anything bad that happens to you is a direct result of someone else's negligence and therefor actionable?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
Complete and total lack of medical oversight in a contest like this == criminal negligence. You know, the kind that people sue over.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I know drinking too much water is bad for the body as a habit, makes you piss out vital minerals from the blood, but I didn't know those things about the swelling of the brain and water in the lungs from acute overdrinking. Not many people know that, I'll wager.
Bang80:
quote:and that it was used as a torture device in midieval times
Screw 12th century, it's being used as we speak in North Korea. I saw a clip on 60Mins IIRC, about a middle-aged woman who fled to SK a couple of years ago and told of being arrested for some political or ideological charge and sent to an interrogation center where they put a contraption down her throat that would let them pour water right down her belly and still have her breathe freely, and they poured on until the stomache and all of the intestines were full, then laid her down, put a plank over her midsection and started weighing on it.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
It's incredible that her body did not just release her bladder automaticly before death occured- there's all sorts of hardwired prevenetive measures in us to prevent serious bodily damage from out idiocy.
She must have had some serious willpower (and possibly some sort of unforseen kidney condition) to have held on for so long.
quote:Complete and total lack of medical oversight in a contest like this == criminal negligence. You know, the kind that people sue over.
Add to that, the various callers warning of just such a thing and the DJ's on tape actually joking about another case where a person died of water intoxication will cinch it.
OTOH, total lack of common sense is why boxes of nails have labels reading "Harmful or Fatal if swallowed".
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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"It's incredible that her body did not just release her bladder automaticly before death occured..."
Obviously she urinated sometime after the contest. Otherwise, she would have won, no? The problem wasn't an excess of water in her bladder. It was an excess of water in all the other parts of her body.
Registered: Mar 1999
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