Water Death Attorney Seeks Death Penalty
FCC Action Sought in Water Death Case
The actual letter written on the letterhead of Dreyer, Babich, Buccola & Callaham, LLP and is dated January 22, 2007.
Follows is a transcription of the text of that letter:
Kevin J. Martin
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Re: Death of Jennifer Strange on January 12, 2007
Dear Mr. Martin:
I am writing to your offices at this time on behalf of my clients, the Jennifer Strange family. On January 12, 2007 Ms. Strange participated in a contest that had been heavily promoted by local Sacramento radio station, KDND, which is owned by the media conglomerate, Entercom. This contest had been publicized by the radio station wherein they were going to have contestants drink large volumes of water and see which contestant could last the longest before urinating.
The wife and mother of my clients, Jennifer Strange, was participant. Despite having a distended abdomen and complaining of significant symptoms of a headache and lightheadedness, the radio station allowed her to leave the premises without any type of assistance or concern. Ms. Strange went home, slipped into a coma and died. She was 28 years old, extremely healthy, held a job of responsibility at a local medical office and had three young children. The preliminary cause of death from the Sacramento County Coroner's Office is hyponatremia which is essentially death by "water intoxication."
Our investigation has revealed that the management of the radio station did no investigation or research into the dangers of this contest. Even a cursory inquiry of any medical office by the station's management would have revealed the life threatening risks of the contest for which this radio station was soliciting contestants. At no time did the radio station or its personnel ever disclose or reveal to any of the contestants the potential health hazards and risks of this particular contest. We believe that an investigation by the FCC will discover that management was involved in the promotional decision to run this contest and pressured their staff to cajole, intimidate and compel contestants to continue drinking large volumes of water despite complaints of physical pain. The contestants were only told that the drinking of the water might cause them some headaches and should they throw up they would be out of the contest. The employees of the radio station encouraged the contestants to ignore their physical complaints and continue consuming water despite the enormous health risk.
While on the air, the employees acknowledged the risks of consuming too much water. They treated it as a joke and stated the station had no responsibility as the contestants had signed "releases". They actually made a joke about people dying while participating in the contest. Further, and quite shockingly, we have evidence that nurses contacted the radio station and specifically notified the on air personalities that they were putting these individuals at risk of death by water intoxication. Once again, despite this notice being provided to the on air personalities, they kept the information from the contestants and continued to pressure them to ingest more water.
We believe the conduct of the management of this station in promoting and pressuring the on air personalities to drive this show in the fashion they did, put the contestants, unknowingly, at great risk of bodily injury and death in an effort to increase their listening audience. Their conduct was oppressive, irresponsible and ultimately led to the death of Jennifer Strange. We believe the conduct of the radio management and on air staff mandates that your agency terminate the radio station's license and discipline its ownership for their wanton disregard of the safety of the participants in this contest. We believe action of this nature is required by the FCC to send a very clear and unambiguous message to radio station ownership across the country that this type of irresponsible conduct that degrade, humiliates and endangers citizens will not be tolerated. A "death penalty" of this nature to a radio station would send a clear message to radio station owners that this type of behavior is unacceptable.
If we can be of any assistance to your agency in investigating these charges and reaching this determination, we would be happy to cooperate. Our requests for information for the radio station have been ignored and it's clear that it is going to take action from your agency to get their attention as to the importance and critical nature of this inquiry.
Respectfully,
DRYER, BABICH, BUCCOLA & CALLAHAM, LLP
By
Roger A. Dreyer
Published by Sharon Cohen
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- While on the air, the employees acknowledged the risks of consuming too much water. They treated it as a joke and stated the station had no responsibility as the contestants had signed "releases".
- ... evidence that nurses contacted the radio station and specifically notified the on air personalities that they were putting these individuals at risk of death by water intoxication.
- A "death penalty" of this nature to a radio station would send a clear message to radio station owners that this type of behavior is unacceptable.
13 Comments
Post a CommentAt what point are people going to take responsibility for their own actions. All of you who place the blame solely on the radio station are really forgetting who actually did the deed. That would be the deceased. Many contests come with potential hazdards. To participate in them without investigating them your self is putting your life in a complete stranger's hands. Now whose fault is that. If one were more responisblbe, rather than involving one's self in fun games that sometimes injure or kill then there would be far less of this finger pointing. Finaally, maybe this mother should have considered her responsibility to her family the second she began to feel the symptoms of hyponeutremia.
Anything is toxic if taken in large quantities. This story reminds me of student hazings for fraternities where students are made to guzzle beer until they throw up blood sometimes. I hate to see this kind of thing happen anywhere, but to think it happened in California tells me that sadism is alive and well and has spread to the West Coast.
I grew up in West Virginia where I had nuns in grade school who escaped from Nazi Germany. We learned all about the horrific sadism in the concentration camps as children from these nuns of the Society of the Poor Child Jesus. Later I learned that all the sadism in these camps was sexual sadism. Sadists are sick people. The people at that Sacramento station were sick people.
And now three little children are motherless because of these psychos. The people should be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, or manslaughter. If Kavorkian could be put in prison for assisting a voluntary suicide, then these people are surely guilty of n
Outstanding work!
I'm hopeful that radio station will be severely dealt with and I hope this will be an eye-opener for other radio stations throughout the US to not endanger the lives of their listeners.
Thanks for posting this Sharon. I hope it has the intended effect. That radio station should be held accountable.
I'm glad to hear it! Thanks for the information.
Great article. I heard about this contest. It sounded crazy to me. Thanks for breaking this news!
great job sharon!
SHARON COHEN: Thanks Jean - and to all others who voice that sentiment - please note the name and address to whom the letter is addressed. Supporting letters of opinion from the public could easily be addressed to the person ... just a suggestion ...wink ;-)
I live in Sacramento where this story unfolded. I was unaware of it until I read it here at Associated Content. When I mentioned AC to a co-worker and shared my articles, she left her desk, went to her car and brought back the copy of the letter. It is on the firm's stationary and bears the signing attorney's signature (photocopied of course). I wished that I could have simply scanned it and posted it as it stands. But that little box we have here for pictures wouldn't render it legible.