The evidence against the defendants was "overwhelming," the plaintiffs' lawyer told the Sacramento Superior Court jury Tuesday. Then he came up with numbers to compensate survivors of the woman who died in a radio station's water drinking contest.

The figures were fairly stunning: $24.6 million to $33.4 million.

Attorney Roger A. Dreyer's request of the seven-man, five-woman jury is on behalf of Jennifer Strange's husband and two young children. The lawyer for the woman's older son is scheduled to put in his request today. It figures to bulk up the demand by as much as an additional $12 million.

"Understand and appreciate the value of a mother, a lover, a companion and a best friend," Dreyer told the jury on the first day of closing arguments in the wrongful death trial.

The 28-year-old woman succumbed on Jan. 12, 2007, to acute intoxication as a result of her participation in radio station KDND's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" competition. The contest promised the video game console to whoever could drink the most water without urinating.

On Tuesday, Dreyer implored jurors to hold defendants Entercom Sacramento LLC and its Philadelphia-based parent, Entercom Communications Corp., liable for Strange's death.

"They need to make sure people don't do dangerous contests," Dreyer said.

Entercom's corporate officials in Philadelphia and Boston failed to train their management personnel in Sacramento to keep their on-air talent in check, he said.

Disc jockeys on KDND's "Morning Rave" program knew ahead of time about a 2005 water intoxication hazing death at California State University, Chico, and were warned by callers during the show the day Strange died that there was potential danger.

Still, Dreyer argued, the station changed the rules in the middle of the contest to double the participants' water intake and then failed to get medical care for Strange even though she had vomited in the station and told them her head hurt.

"You get to decide what the standards are in this community, how radio station personnel are going to operate … and how a company like Entercom is going to train its personnel," he told the jury.

Dreyer said the training failure led to "a complete breakdown" from the written policies and procedures Entercom had developed to prohibit contests that were illegal, dangerous or in bad taste.

"That's why we're here," Dreyer told the jury.

Entercom attorney Donald W. Carlson is expected to present his closing argument today. On Tuesday, Carlson asked Judge Lloyd A. Phillips to declare a mistrial, saying that Dreyer's reference to community standards invited the jury to "send a message" with "a punitive type award" that is barred in this case.

Phillips denied the motion. It was the second time Carlson had tried and failed to get a mistrial. Carlson also made a motion last week for the judge to take the case away from the jury and render a verdict on his own. Phillips denied that motion.

In assessing damages in the case, Dreyer said that Jennifer Strange's widower, Billy Strange, 30, and their two children, Ryland, 6, and Jorie, 3, are each entitled to $1.5 million to $2 million in non-economic damages for the past loss of Jennifer Strange's love, companionship, comfort and care. He pegged such future damages at between $4.7 and $7.05 million for Billy Strange and $7.7 to $10.2 million each for the children.

On top of the non-economic damages, Dreyer asked the jury for an additional $1,888,135 in Strange's past and future economic losses he said is due to his clients.

Strange's oldest son, Keegan Sims, 13, is the other plaintiff in the suit.

Dreyer told the jury that he thinks Strange should share none of the responsibility for her death. He said she had no way of knowing the potential harm of drinking too much water and that neither she nor any of the other contestants on the show had heard or were ever told about the warning calls that had come into the station.

"Does Jennifer have the right to trust these people?" Dreyer said. "Does she have a right to think, 'I never thought they'd put me in a contest where I could die'?"

At the outset of his presentation, Dreyer showed the jury pictures of Jennifer Strange and her family and told the panel that "the focus of this case is Jennifer." He recounted several witnesses' testimony about the love and energy she had for her family and called her loss "a true, genuine tragedy."

But he said he did not want the jury to base its decision on sympathy.

"We're not here for pity," Dreyer said. "We're here for justice."

Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.