Here is a little bit more info on water intoxication:SACRAMENTO: A 28-year-old Californian woman has died of water intoxication after taking part in a radio station's water drinking contest.
Jennifer Strange was competing in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" competition, trying to win a Nintendo Wii video game system.
Sacramento County's assistant coroner, Ed Smith, said an investigation had found evidence "consistent with a water intoxication death".
Ms Strange's mother found her body at her home in Sacramento on Friday after Ms Strange called her supervisor at her job to say she was heading home in terrible pain.
"She said to one of our supervisors that she was on her way home and her head was hurting her real bad … That was the last anyone heard from her," said Laura Rios, one of Ms Strange's co-workers.
Earlier on Friday, Ms Strange took part in a radio station contest in which participants competed to see how much water they could drink without going to the toilet. Initially, contestants were handed 220-millilitre bottles of water to drink every 15 minutes.
"They were small little half-pint bottles, so we thought it was going to be easy," said James Ybarra, a fellow contestant who stopped after drinking five bottles. After he quit, the remaining contestants, including Ms Strange, were given even bigger bottles to drink, Mr Ybarra said.
They call it WATER INTOXICATION or more technically HYPONATREMIA. It happens when the body’s balance of salt and water become quickly diluted. It affects the production of nerve impulses, and impairs mental processes. Cells take on extra water and expand. As they swell, they put stress on the body’s organs, particularly the brain, which has little room to expand within the skull. Sometimes Hyponatremia is caused by an underlying medical condition.
Hyponatremia isn’t unique to the military. Indeed, marathon runners, tri-athletes, even high-desert hikers all can succumb. “Most people aren’t aware of the risk of drinking too much water,” said Bob Murray, director of Gatorade Sports Science Institute. Sport drinks are engineered to replace both salt and fluids depleted during exercise. Drinking sports drinks can help; but it alone can’t maintain adequate sodium levels for people engaging in rigorous, endurance–level activity.
The point is you need to replenish not only the fluids you lose when you sweat, but the salt as well. Nothing that comes out of your body is pure water. So you’ve got to replace it with both the salt and water, Not Just Water.
Water Intoxication typically occurs over 4 to 6 hours or more. It attacks participants in High–Endurance events, such as marathons, long road marches and triathlons in which participants swim, bicycle and run long distances in non–stop succession.
WHY YOU NEED SODIUM
Sodium helps maintain the body’s electrical processes essential to transmitting nerve impulses and contracting muscles. When the body’s sodium content is depleted at the same time water level is increased, cells absorb more water and swell. Excessive water in the brain cells can cause seizures and in rare cases death.
Local Radio Station Fires 10 After Deadly Contest
107.9 The End Has Cancelled The Morning Rave Show
(AP) SACRAMENTO A Sacramento area radio station fired 10 employees Tuesday, including three morning disc jockeys, after a mother of three died following an on-air water-drinking contest last week at the station's studios.
The hosts of KDND-FM's "Morning Rave" -- who go by the on-air names Trish, Maney and Lukas -- were fired a day after the station announced it was suspending the show and investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Jennifer Lea Strange.
Strange, 28, died after participating in a water-drinking contest on the program.
it's like a contest "how long can you walk around with a body covered in flames" rediculous