http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&sn=005&sc=514
There were lots of reasons to think Jennifer Strange was in deep trouble after she spent hours guzzling in a water-drinking contest at a Sacramento radio station.
"I asked her, 'How do you feel?' " said Elidia Campos, one of 20 contestants. "She said, 'Oh, my God. I feel so awful, I'm about to pass out.' ''
But the DJs at KDND-FM apparently figured that was her problem, wasn't it? It was her choice to enter Friday morning's contest. The hosts can be heard joking on an audiotape of Friday's show about how Strange's stomach was distended from drinking nearly 2 gallons of water, and they teased her and other contestants because they did not "look so good."
Told by another DJ that "We got a guy who's just about to die," one of the jocks had a quick response.
"Make sure he signs the release," he chortled, setting off gales of laughter in the studio.
It was, in short, typical dumbbell morning radio, featuring the kind of stupid stunts and heckling that have raised ratings on stations across the nation. It has certainly worked for KDND's "The Morning Rave," which has become one of Sacramento's top-rated drive-time shows.
And if you found their antics mean and offensive, maybe you just weren't cool enough to get the joke.
Then Jennifer Strange died.
Twenty-eight years old, married and the mother of three, Strange had entered the "Hold your Wee for a Wii'' contest to try to win a Nintendo Wii video game player for her kids. Contestants had to drink as much water as they could without going to the bathroom. What Strange didn't know was that after drinking so much water in a little over four hours, she'd given herself a deadly condition that the coroner would later say was consistent with water intoxication. She was found dead that afternoon in her Rancho Cordova home.
Strange was one of the original 20 contestants who were put in a room with one DJ separate from the studio where they could not hear on-air comments or callers. Once the contest was narrowed down to two, Strange and the eventual winner, Lucy Davidson, were brought into the studio.
None of the contestants had any idea what they had gotten themselves into.
"I thought it was just water," Campos says, "that it would just flush out my body. I just assumed that because it was a contest, everything would be checked out."
Hardly. As the contestants dropped out, it became clear that some of them were having serious health problems. Not that anyone at the station seemed concerned.
"There was a girl on the floor," says Campos, who made it to the final five. "She must have been there for an hour with her teeth chattering. They were heckling her."
"Your body is 98 percent water," one of the hosts remarked to his on-air audience. "Why can't you take in as much water as you want?"
Because, as many of us in the Bay Area learned two years ago, an excess of water creates a physical shutdown. Pleasant Hill college student Matt Carrington died in 2005 of water intoxication in a hazing incident at a Cal State Chico fraternity.
In fact, Carrington's case came up on Friday. Someone in the studio mentioned "that poor kid in college," but another DJ responded that Carrington "was doing other things."
No, actually, he wasn't. As a listener who identified herself as "Eve" told the morning crew, people "can get sick and possibly die from water intoxication."
"We're aware of that," one jock replied. And another jumped in to wisecrack that everyone in the contest had signed releases, "so we're not responsible."
Another joke. Are those guys zany and irreverent or what?
Well, here's another good one. Sacramento sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Tim Curran said Wednesday that the department feels that it has enough information to begin an investigation. Originally, the sheriff had said that because the contestants entered under their own free will, there might have been no crime.
But that changed after investigators heard a tape this week of the on-air conversations and how the hosts disregarded the caller's warnings and signs that Strange and other contestants were experiencing symptoms of intoxication. Sacramento district attorney's office spokeswoman Lana Wyant said prosecutors will be watching the results of the investigation as they consider filing charges.
Station Vice President and General Manager John Geary issued a statement of sympathy on Tuesday. The same day, the station announced that it had fired 10 staff members, including the five hosts of the "Morning Rave," which was canceled.
Meanwhile, the lawsuits are likely to stretch from here to the top of the Sierra. A legal action is already in the works from an attorney representing the Strange family. Because as tragic as Strange's death was, other contestants on Friday were nearly as ill.
"No one was more sick than anyone else," Campos says. "We were so out of it, so disoriented. I felt like I was drunk. There was no way I could make a rational decision, especially with people egging you on."
Campos dropped out with two other contestants when one of them began to vomit. That triggered two others to throw up, although it didn't help when one of the DJs made retching sounds to encourage heaving.
"I had cold sweats, my head hurt, and I can't even guess how many times I threw up on the way home," Campos says. "I passed out in bed at 11 (a.m.) and didn't wake up until my husband shook me awake at 6 that night."
Campos wonders if she somehow could have intervened when Strange became very ill. They talked about their kids, watched a video on Campos' DVD player, and commiserated about how terrible they felt.
"We totally had a moment together," says Campos, 33. "She talked about her kids the whole time. I just can't stop thinking about it."
Meanwhile, Lukas, Maney and Trish, hosts of "The Morning Rave," released a statement.
"At this time," it said, "we would like to express our deepest condolences to the family of Jennifer Strange. We want to thank all of our listeners for their continued support and we ask that you join us by keeping Jennifer and her family in your thoughts and prayers."
Now they're sorry? What a joke.
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