Whoever went to the bathroom was out, and Jennifer Strange eventually came in second when she decided to drop out and accept tickets to a Justin Timberlake concert.
She died later that day from hyponatremia, court documents state, "a condition resulting from drinking too much water."
Dreyer told The Bee that Strange's husband and children – ages 13, 5 and 3 – still suffer from her death.
"The husband is doing his very best to fill the role of both a father and a mother, and it's a day-to-day battle," Dreyer said. "The passage of time doesn't make the hurt any less or the loss any less …
"Every day he gets up and his wife is not there. Every time these kids have some event take place – a graduation, an accomplishment in school, a play – they know their mom is not there and ask about it. So, it's tough."
FCC took no action
Dreyer said that Entercom, which owns 110 radio stations nationwide including six in Sacramento, was never punished by the Federal Communications Commission after Strange died.
"The importance of the case is the FCC, the agency that's supposed to monitor radio stations, is comfortable fining someone for using obscenities but takes no action when they kill someone," Dreyer said. "Here we have a contest where the radio station did not follow its own protocol, did not follow its own rules.
"They allowed immature individuals lacking in judgment to make decisions that cost the family their mother and their wife."
In one court filing, the damages being sought are spelled out: $5 million each for William Strange and the three children for "loss of society and companionship," $25,000 for funeral expenses, $1.5 million for future lost earnings and $2.5 million for value of personal service.
Donald W. Carlson, a San Francisco attorney for Entercom, and company spokesman Charles Sipkins declined to comment on the case.
But the company has made clear in court filings that no officials, including Vice President John Geary, who also is being sued, knew anything about the contest before it took place and that the program's hosts should have first informed company officials.
The company also has made clear its disdain for the claims of the other contestants, who filed a separate suit four months after the Strange family filed its case. Both cases have since been combined.
Those contestants, Davidson, Gina Sherrod and Victoria Myers, originally filed emotional-distress claims, Entercom said in its filings, but later added claims that they were suffering from "a myriad of clinical disorders ranging from (post-traumatic stress disorder) and severe anxiety to major depression.
"The timing of the plaintiffs' recent revelations of previously repressed PTSD and new treatment, after over two years of no symptoms and no treatment, is at best suspicious," Entercom's attorneys wrote.
Call The Bee's Sam Stanton, (916) 321-1091.
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