Too High a Price for a Wii - get ready for batshit crazy story

[helderheid]

By Tom Zeller Jr.


Jennifer Strange28-year-old Jennifer Strange, of Rancho Cordova, Calif., is believed to have died of water intoxication after competing in a radio station’s contest to win a Nintendo Wii. (Photo: AP)

This tragedy speaks for itself.

A 28-year-old suburban Sacramento woman died of apparent “water intoxication” after participating in a contest — “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” — sponsored by local radio station 107.9 KDND. The rules were simple: Participants simply competed to see how much water they could drink without going to the bathroom. The winner would receive a shiny new Wii video game console, the highly coveted, $250 must-have from Nintendo.

She left behind a husband, two sons and a daughter. From The Associated Press:

Jennifer Strange’s mother found her daughter’s body at her home Friday in the Sacramento suburb of Rancho Cordova, California, after Strange called her supervisor at her job to say she was heading home in terrible pain.

“She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad,” said Laura Rios, one of Strange’s coworkers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. “She was crying and that was the last that anyone had heard from her.”

[sweetheart]

1. water is dangerous, it should be illegal!!!

Start a war on water, criminalize all those drinkers out there, drunks the lot of 'em!

Get the stupid police out there to bust the water pushers.

[Phredicles]

3. ANYTHING is dangerous if you have too much of it.

I'm assuming you're joking, but that radio station seriously needs to be sued to a terrifying degree.

[TheMadMonk]

11. The campaign's been going for a few years now.

http://www.dhmo.org/

[Selatius]

2. Are there body counts in France and Germany when they release new game consoles?

Or are we unique in the industrialized world for having a body count over video game systems?

[DesertRat]

4. Very sad story. n/t

[lapfog_1]

5. This isn't the first time

Frat boys, figuring out that alcohol can kill you, decided to change their hazing rituals to drinking water. I'm sure that some frat boy or other has died from this (perhaps more than one). The radio station should have known or at least asked someone before sponsoring the contest. They are going to get sued. Her kids are going to get more than a Wii in the settlement (but not enough to make up for losing their mother).

[Pirate Smile]

I know I've read stories of pledges dying from that exact kind of hazing.

That radio station is going to get their ass sued.

The woman that won was also sick. She said that she and the woman that died were both in the bathroom puking afterward and both felt incredibly sick. She went home and went to bed. The other woman went home crying in pain and died.

I've seen quite a few stories about this over the past couple of years - mostly from the hazing of pledges by making them drink enormous amounts of water which ended with a dead kid.

God damn idiots! I'm talking about the radio station. Did they run this through legal or just decide to do this sh@@ on their own?

[Guaranteed]

6. Somebody at the station should have seen this coming.

This is fairly common knowledge, today, that drinking so much water without electrolytes can kill you.

[RamboLiberal]

14. It's not that common knowledge

If you're an athlete you especially an endurance athlete you probably know about it. If you're a couch potato or don't workout hard you probably don't.

First I heard about this was a few years ago, and I was in to martial arts and reading a lot on exercise, nutrition, hydration, etc.

In fact it was preached drink, drink, drink, water - you don't need those fancy sports drinks.

Well now when I'm out in hot weather I balance the sports drinks with the water.

[earth mom]

7. So sad for more than one reason.

So sad that she died because she wanted to do something special for her kids.

So sad that our society is so wrapped up in material goods that people will do anything to get them.

So sad that her children lost their mother at a cost far higher than the price of a Wii.

:cry:

[Inkyfuzzbottom]

8. I am SO out of the loop...

forgive me, but I have no children. WTF is a Wii? One of those stupid video game things that kids sit on their fat asses playing all day? Another indoor video type activity that is creating a generation of fat, out of shape kids? The damn things should be outlawed! Dammit kids, get your fat asses outside and play!

[MADem]

10. This is one that makes the little fatasses move, actually

It has a controller where the kids will be jumping around in front of the tv to make the game work, wiggling the thing like a bowling ball, a gun, a sword or what-have-you....

That's why it is so popular, because it is more interactive--it's like the next thing up from that Dance pad the kids went mad for....

[MADem]

9. Two hundred and fifty bucks? Heck, save your money, get a part time job

What a sad way to go . There's more detail in this article: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16466226.htm

.....Sherrod said the contest room was quiet at first, but morning disc jockeys Trish, Maney and Lukas and radio personalities Carter and Fester came in and out of the room, pumping up the participants.

''We did it like we were drinking shots,'' Sherrod said. 'Instead of saying `cheers' we would say 'Wii' and then shoot it.''

Ybarra, the Woodland man, said Fester went outside and sprayed the window with water and turned on a faucet to tempt contestants to use the bathroom.

''As time went by, it got harder to drink those small bottles,'' Ybarra said.

After contestants drank eight of the 8-fluid-ounce bottles of water, radio staff gave them larger bottles to drink, Ybarra said. That's when he left.

Sherrod drank half of a larger bottle before she ran out of the room and vomited.

''I felt drunk and really out of it,'' she said.......

[deadmessengers]

12. Water intoxication

The insidious thing about water intoxication, also known as hyponatremia, is that the symptoms, initially, look very much like those of dehydration. Paramedics (& sometimes doctors) will see the signs, start IV fluids (standard treatment for dehydration), and that makes the problem WAY worse. Very often, this mistaken diagnosis is what kills the patient - although that doesn't appear to be what happened here.

Very sad, very stupid.

[MisterHowdy]

13. Sad and Disturbing

Very sad.
n/t

[Rosemary2205]

15. Right up there with Les Nessman's turkey drop

no one told HIM turkey's don't fly.