Well, I'm not sure if you heard about this, but a radio station in Sacramento is in trouble for a contest which participants drank large amounts of water in a short amount of time and not go to the bathroom and the winner gets a Nintendo Wii. One person died of water intoxication.

This should serve as a warning to those stations who might be thinking about doing the same thing.

www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=23505

Audio excerpts from the contest.
www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/kdndslides

The station could be held liable, if you listen to the above audio.

Isn't this just thinning of the heard?

Maybe, but it seems worse if you were tricked into doing it.

Perhaps I mispoke a little, how was she tricked into doing it?

Well, I thought they tricked her by not letting the contestants hear them talk about the possible dangers of what they were doing.

I mean, did you know about water intoxication before this happened?

I would have been like that caller who said they didn't do the contest because they didn't want to die.

I have heard of water intoxication but that doesn't mean she had. It was her responsibilty to research it before volunteering for the contest though.

I find it typical too that the lawyer hadn't even read the release she signed before shooting his mouth off about wrongful death.

A proper waiver will protect an organization in the case they did everything right, but bad things still happened. A poor waiver will not protect against anything. The station did nothing right in this case.

Priceless clips from before the contest:

- "maybe we should have researched this more"
- on contestents dying, "we had them sign a release so we aren't responsible"
- on the risk of water intoxication, something like - "if a person is in danger, the body will automatically throw up and they will be ok."

Thank you doctor DJ! A pharmacist can't dispense medical advice, but a DJ can. The question about risking death was raised but the station blew it off and said there was no risk because you would throw up. OOOPS!

Was there medical staff present in case of trouble? Don't think so. The station also controlled the amounts and time intervals that water was provided. That creates an appearance that they knew what they were doing.

I read about a marathoner with water intoxication and the treatment at the medical tent was simply salty hot broth. The lady who died at the contest was showing clear symptoms of water intoxication. Just having someone there who understood them and giving her salty broth may have saved her life. If she died because of a combination of water with other medical problems there was still no medical staff to attend to her.

Contestents have some responsibility, but the overwhelming onus is on event organizers and they did jack all to understand or minimize the risk from the event that was run on their terms. The station was negligent and I doubt this even gets to court.

Unless there is gross or intentional misrepresentation the onus is on the participant know the facts and dangers of what they are doing.

This meets your criteria.

Spensar, actually there was no medical personnel there nor did they send her to the hospital afterwards.

And I don't think any waiver could protect the station against injury or death.

To follow up, now the family is considering a lawsuit to have the station's broadcasting license pulled.