Jury Says Radio Station Must Pay $16.6M in Woman’s Water Intoxication Death
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The owner of a California radio station must pay $16.6 million to the survivors of a woman who died of water intoxication after participating in a "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest. The winner of the 2007 contest promoted by KDND, also known as "The End" due to the station's position on the FM dial, was to receive the Nintendo video game for drinking the most water without either urinating or vomiting.
Lawyers for the family of Jennifer Lea Strange, who died at age 28, leaving her husband and three children, had asked for between $34 million and $44 million, the Sacramento Bee reports.
Plaintiffs lawyers Roger Dreyer and Harvey Levine played tapes of the "Morning Rave" show that held the contest for the Sacramento Superior Court jury, and they heard disc jockeys joke about contestants throwing up and the possibility that someone could die from drinking too much water, the article recounts. Even after several on-air calls from listeners expressing concern that drinking too much water was dangerous, the jokes continued.