Darwin Award or Unfortunate Accident?

I'm sure many of you have heard about the case where the girl drowned of "water intoxication" after participating in a Radio station contest in 2007. The contest was to see how much water someone could drink without going to the bathroom in order to win a Nitendo Wii. The girl drank nearly 2 gallons in three hours.

During the contest, she complained of her head hurting & feeling light headed. Many people (including nurses) called in to say how dangerous this was & how she could drown of water toxicity and such. The DJ's even mused (light heartedly) about how this may not have been a good idea. Several times they joked about it and dismissed it saying "they signed a release so we're not responsible". There were plenty of warnings and chances to stop things but they didn't. Few hours after going home, the 28yr woman died of exactly what was warned.

The Husband sued the Radio station and the Jury awarded the husband $16Million. I'm fine with that I guess; though not intentional, they were negligent in not researching it before it was done but more so, they didn't heed the many warnings given or even stop to check out the validity of the warnings.

However, did the contestant herself play a role in this too? I know people hate to point out the victim as it's callous, however, from a strictly logical standpoint, if her head was hurting, why didn't she stop?? Why didn't she bow out of the competition herself as she heard the warnings too and she was the feeling the effects?

I guess I just don't understand how she's not somewhat responsible for her own death too... Even if she didn't know before, once she learned of the dangers or felt the pain, she could've stopped. I don't get it.

Am I missing something here?


http://abcnews.go.com/G MA/jury-rules-radio-sta tion-jennifer-strange-w ater-drinking/story?id= 8970712

Update: November 02, 2009.
True that not many of us knew about water toxicity before this & True we often dismiss common pains like headaches. HOWEVER, the caveat's here to both of those reasons is that: 1-she did learn of the dangers DURING the incident, which means she couldv'e stopped. 2- It was an unusual activity. Most of us aren't downing gallons of water when we get a common headache. If we'd dismiss it while doing something so strange AND being repeatedly warned...sorry, but that's a little Darwinism to me. An unusual activity like this, followed by pain, followed by warnings from medical professionals or others that had enough knowledge about it to at least research it, is what gets me. Look, I'm not saying she deserved to die. I agree the Radio station was negligent. I just think maybe the award should've been $8 million since half of this was the contestants own fault as far as I can see.