Feedback on Jennifer Strange/radio contest death

A young man named Ben left me a blog comment on my Myspace page regarding the Jennifer Strange story, below is his reply to the blog and my response follows:

From Ben on Myspace: People also often overlook the dangers of jaywalking and a lot of other simple everyday things. Should a station research the effects of a fat guy running two miles in under twenty minutes for a contest? Of course that's unhealthy!

My main point is that this lady did what she did. Nobody else made her. She signed a waiver and knew there was a potential risk and she chose to ignore it. Nobody is at fault but her. If the radio station gets blamed (which they have) bars should be next because they serve the people that drive home and then kill somebody because they are impaired.

My next point is that it sucks most for the family of this woman. Her kids no don't have a mother because she lacked the maturity to stay away from a idiotic stunt

My response: Should a station research the effects of a fat guy running two miles in under twenty minutes for a contest? Of course that's unhealthy! YES, if the station plans such a contest...

I agree with your points, my point of the station doing research for such a contest is that if you had listened to the morning segment the DJ's are asking each other if you can get hurt or even die performing such a stunt, don't you think details like that should be looked at before running a contest involving a stunt? We know jaywalking is dangerous, and we know drunk driving is dangerous... Did anyone think beforehand what could result in this stunt? Jennifer Strange didn't and neither did the radio station although judging from the comments and questions from the morning crew Jennifer should've thought twice before going ahead.

Now as far as firing the entire morning crew over this, I think because the contestants signed a waiver that should basically rid the station of any responsibility should something really get screwed up. In this case I guess the company that owns the station did this as some type of "damage-control" move, I think a fine and/or suspension for a few days may have been more appropriate. However, legalities aside, the station needs to be a little more responsible when dealing with the public. It's ashame but there are stupid people out there.