Was the Wii Contest Responsible for a Woman's Death?

[Rach3]

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A woman who competed in a radio station's contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the bathroom died of water intoxication, the coroner's office said Saturday.

Jennifer Strange, 28, was found dead Friday in her suburban Rancho Cordova home hours after taking part in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest in which KDND 107.9 promised a Nintendo Wii video game system for the winner.

"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 co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento. "She was crying, and that was the last that anyone had heard from her."

It was not immediately known how much water Strange consumed.

A preliminary investigation found evidence "consistent with a water intoxication death," said assistant Coroner Ed Smith.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/13/water.intox.ap/index.html

I'm not sure which is more outrageous, the

John Geary, vice president and marketing manager for Entercom Sacramento, the station's owner, said station personnel were stunned when they heard of Strange's death.

"We are awaiting information that will help explain how this tragic event occurred," he said.

or the

one of Strange's co-workers at Radiological Associates of Sacramento.

This was a qualified radiologist?

 

[JasonRox]

Sounds like she was dehydrated.

A hydrated person would have to pee really bad after the first 40 minutes of the game. I mean unbearbly painful, and by the sounds of it, they went on over an hour for sure. I couldn't imagine doing that myself.

 

[ranger]

"water intoxication" from not peeing. This is something new to me.

 

[Cyrus]

Why is this important?

Rach, I think you are the Shock Jock of PF.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I keep waiting for those disgusting eating contests to kill someone and put an end to it. Really, at the least you would think that someone would choke to death.

I had never heard of a water drinking contest before, and likely won't again.

 

[Integral]

Why does the name Tyco Brahe come to my mind?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On another related note: The alleged champion beer chugger


awe, I think this one is a fake. There is a guy who can do exactly what you see here with a full glass, but in the slow shot it looks to me like the glass is nearly empty when he tips it.

 

[JasonRox]

Why does the name Tyco Brahe come to my mind?

I thought he couldn't pee because of bladder problems.

 

[verty]

Well it does concern physics in a way, if you think of the mechanism of water intoxification (osmosis).

 

[Moonbear]

This was a qualified radiologist?

How do you conclude that? There are more people than just radiologists working in a radiology office...receptionists, accountants, cleaning staff, etc.

Sounds like she was dehydrated.

A hydrated person would have to pee really bad after the first 40 minutes of the game. I mean unbearbly painful, and by the sounds of it, they went on over an hour for sure. I couldn't imagine doing that myself.

If she died of water "intoxication," it's more likely she started out normally hydrated in order for the water consumed to have had such rapid effects of over-hydration. They don't say anything about her size, but if she was one of the smaller competitors, the volume of water consumed would have been a greater percentage of her body weight than in a larger person.

There's an interesting paradoxical effect in "water intoxication" (more correctly, the problem is hyponatremia, or low sodium concentrations) that the kidney filtration rate is reduced along with urine output. It's easy to confuse the symptoms with dehydration, and make yourself worse by consuming even more water.

Here's a case report of water intoxication in an Ironman athlete who happened to be part of a larger study on hyponatremia that gave good insight into the basis of this problem.

http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/38/4/e16
T D Noakes, K Sharwood, M Collins and D R Perkins. The dipsomania of great distance: water intoxication in an Ironman triathlete, Br J Sports Med 2004;38:e16.

This is the report of one aspect of the larger study that the case study came from...
http://bjsm.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/38/6/718
K A Sharwood, M Collins, J H Goedecke, G Wilson and T D Noakes. Weight changes, medical complications, and performance during an Ironman triathlon, Br J Sports Med 2004;38:718-724.

 

[J77]

That's pretty irresponsible from the radio people - they should be investigated over this.

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

I have heard of this happening quite a few times actually. What a stupid contest, seriously.