Sad case of desperation for Wii.

[RussSchultz]

The obvious solution is to change the contest to gatorade drinking, rather than water.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Any way you cut it, drinking down 2 Liters of water in a short amount of time just isnt natural, and doesnt feel good, infact it feels terrible.

I can say the same thing about running long distances People do a lot of unnatural things. Working night-shifts is one. Typing on keyboards getting RSI, but continuing to type despite the pain, is another.

Thats common sense.

Much of what is sense is learnt behaviour, and I think people learn to ignore a lot of natural responses. The common sense, the common knowledge about what's bad for you, doesn't extend very far to working with one's own body balance. DemoCoder presents a good explanation of why people should know better, but that's all from scientific education. There isn't much people take out of their schooling into every day lives. Typical common sense doesn't rely on schooling, but more experience. eg. If you pour petrol over yourself and then start smoking, you'll get burnt. Common sense tells you not to do that because you know it's bad, without needing a scientific understanding of hydrocarbon combustion. Upsetting the electrolyte balance by consuming too much water isn't any common knowledge you get from everyday experience. Knowing when to listen to body's warning signs, and when to ignore them, also isn't common knowledge, perhaps because in most cases those warnings are ignored, no real harm comes of it (at least, not acute harm).

 

[zed]

so anyone know how much she actually drunk, i read 300ml every 15minutes + then increased amounts, i take it she wasnt allowed to piss (which would be the hard part if the contest went on for a while)
reminds me of the hundred club (which i was to late for last time i was at oktoberfest ) though there ppl just piss in their pants, vomit all up, good fun etc.
i did do it later 100beer shots in 100minutes, ~4liters, quite easy (though i did have to piss)
ive also done the yardglass of beer in about 50secs (+ im not a fast drinker compared to some ppl ive seen, me a pint in 15secs yet ive seen guys do it 5-7secs + are sure the worldrecords even much better than that)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard-Of-Ale_Glass
~1.7 liters, beers a lot harder than water due to the gas, ( u use flat beer btw when u scull )

true everyones different but 2 liters of water in 5minutes doesnt seem like much

 

[BRiT]

She was allowed to piss. Granted it meant she'd be out of the contest. No one forced her to do anything she didn't want to do.

 

[willardjuice]

Sad either way.

 

[Sankari]

She was allowed to piss. Granted it meant she'd be out of the contest. No one forced her to do anything she didn't want to do.

This is what people seem to believe but you guys are ignoring once again that not everyone is educated enough to know that you can die to this. Doctors always tell you to drink lots and lots of water, they never limit it, how should a common man/woman know about the dangers of this? I bet she thought she would only throw up, not die from it. Its the radiostations fault for not having a statement, or an expert telling people the dangers of this stunt.

I say sue the station.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Doctors always tell you to drink lots and lots of water, they never limit it, how should a common man/woman know about the dangers of this?

Maybe because a docter wont expect a person to drink a couple of liters water in a short time?

 

[Blazkowicz]

I knew about water intoxication, I had read a story about a woman who died after drinking 14 liters, as her doctor had told to drink much.

 

[Dresden]

________________________________________
This tragedy comes at an interesting time. Apparently not too long ago, another radio station had done a bit where they claimed some high profile celebrity was making rounds in some small town, via a white limousine. After being spotted somewhere, obviously people rushed it, and someone eventually got trampled to death. Opie and Anthony were talking about this and Jim Norton raised a valid point: If you're partaking in a contest and you physically put yourself in danger in such a fashion, why not just drop out of the contest? I'm under the impression the symptoms of water intoxication are evident early on, instead of death hitting you like a freight train. The process seems like it would be drawn out long enough for you to know you were in any real danger.

Then comes the fact that these idiotic radio show hosts probably abided by the cardinal rule of "devoid of responsibility or obligation to inform people of inherent risks involved in these stupid radio stunts." Ask me about stupid radio show pranks: my moniker is based off of member of the Opie and Anthony show. I'm relatively certain they've been fired the most for their tomfoolery on the radio. My point is, they've done a lot of stupid stuff on the radio, I mean A LOT, but in all my years of faithful listening the only thing that ever got hurt was someone's feelings. Typically, say for example this were an eating contest, people would be obligated to sign a liability contract stating that the whatever bodily harm they incur is by their own free will, therefore the radio station won't be held accountable. In summation, there's a plethora of accountability practices that these people obviously failed that abide by.

The moral of this story is just buy a goddamn Wii. What is it, 200 bucks?

 

[nelg]

The obvious solution is to change the contest to gatorade drinking, rather than water.

Yep!

 

[Bigus Dickus]

I'm under the impression the symptoms of water intoxication are evident early on, instead of death hitting you like a freight train. The process seems like it would be drawn out long enough for you to know you were in any real danger.

That is by no means always the case.

 

[Dresden]

That is by no means always the case.

The woman complained of pain and even called her boss crying before her death. I'm pretty sure she was aware of something internally wrong at this point. Then again I'm not a doctor, nor have I even heard of water intoxication before this case, so perhaps I took a few liberties with my estimation.

*edit* Upon reading up on water intoxication I found the following statement:

"As with alcohol poisoning, the progression from mild to severe symptoms may occur rapidly as the water continues to enter the body from the stomach or intravenously."

Apparently it can be potentially sneaky in terms of severity. You're right BD. So let me get this straight, the over-intake of water produces a dillution of sodium in the blood, right? So essentially your blood poisons you? Or is it more along the lines of water is replacing vital nutrients and electrolytes therefore acting as a spaceholder that's taking up space of valuable substances?

 

[AlNom]

Ah... well, one thing that could happen: low sodium concentrations make it difficult for nerves to work their magic. Upon activation, there is typically an influx of sodium ions that open up more voltage-gated channels in the axon, and this "signal" propagates down the axon of the nerve ultimately to signal another nerve or say... a muscle.

The key idea is that there would be little sodium going in, and there would hence not be enough voltage built up to overcome the threshold needed for the nerve to activate.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

So let me get this straight, the over-intake of water produces a dillution of sodium in the blood, right? So essentially your blood poisons you? Or is it more along the lines of water is replacing vital nutrients and electrolytes therefore acting as a spaceholder that's taking up space of valuable substances?

Well, that's going in the right direction but it isn't really a dilution per se that is the problem, but an actual removal of vital electrolytes from circulation [edit - well, the problem is the dilution, but the mechanism isn't simply adding more water to a fixed ion amount, but ion removal, which might not be as intuitive... see explanation below]. Specifically, our kidneys function to maintain salt and water balance in our bodies (among other functions), and they accomplish that through selective permeability of certain ions, particularly sodium. But balance is dependent on reasonable amounts of both salt and water intake to begin with... when our water intake and bodily content is too high (which in itself might result in systemic edema, hypertension, hypervolemia, etc.) our kidneys are called in to action to remove water from circulation.

To do that, the kidneys must allow sodium to pass through to the urinary system... where the salt goes, the water follows; so we get rid of excess water by throwing salt out as bait. This reduces water in circulation at the expense of electrolyte reduction. We can cope with this situation through a few compensatory mechanisms that attempt to maintain salt levels, but only for moderate cases and only for so long. If you keep adding water, you eventually lose the ability to maintain adequate sodium in the body as your kidneys keep excreting it. Diluting what is left certainly doesn't help the situation.

The problem is that there is significant lag in the transition from water in the GI system, to hypervolemia, to the resultant hyponatremia. Once the water is in the GI tract it may be too late (without serious medical intervention) to stop the inevitable renal process, but it may be too early for your body to notice any significant ion problems, so at most you may have the same mild GI discomfort you get from Thanksgiving or from a hotdog eating contest. Neuromuscular problems only come after the kidneys have been working on the situation long enough... and you can easily put too much water in the pipeline before that occurs.

The truth is, a given (large) volume of water is more dangerous to your physiological function than an equal amount of tons of other edible/drinkable stuff, and that just isn't common sense to most people.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

TheInq is reporting that 10 people were fired over this and the show canned. Apparently they knew of the possible dangers, but went ahead and ran the competition anyway.

 

[Dresden]

Anyone else feel that a mere firing isn't exactly enough to compensate for the death of an individual? I find it a little offensive that people like Opie and Anthony go through the motions of numerous criminal charges for lesser offenses, certainly not ones that actually dealt physical damage to an individual, and not even "charges are being filed" has been mentioned in that article. Perhaps with time it'll be inevitable. Gross negligence is involved, it even says they knew the dangers. It's like saying "I'm going to fire a gun at you, but there's a 50/50 chance that the bullet is either real or a blank. I know, and I disregard the dangers, yet I'm going to do it anyway."

 

[nelg]

My guess would be that chloride homeostasis is lost (via NKCC1 and KCC2). As a result, Gabaergic inhibition would become excitatory across all inhibitory interneurons, leading to wide scale eleptiform activity causing death.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Of course there is a Wiki entry, if you want to read about the chemistry and the various mechanisms involved in water intoxication.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

My guess would be that chloride homeostasis is lost (via NKCC1 and KCC2). As a result, Gabaergic inhibition would become excitatory across all inhibitory interneurons, leading to wide scale eleptiform activity causing death.

That's an effect of the hyponatremia, but I'm not sure if that is the causative mechanism of death in all cases, or in what percentage of cases.

 

[SugarCoat]

Wii-contest DJs could face criminal charges

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164325.html?tag=latestnews;title;3

But in audio recordings which have been posted on the Internet, the DJs are heard joking about contestants dying of water intoxication, even referencing the death of Matthew Carrington, a student who died after drinking too much water during a fraternity hazing. A caller, who identified herself as Eva, also phoned in to the show to warn that the stunt could kill, but she was dismissed by being told that contestants had "signed releases, so we're not responsible."

Love the line at the end of the audioclip in the link "maybe we should of researched this-ah-ha-ha".