Nurse Pranked by Austrailian Radio DJs reportedly commits suicide.

[anthony87]

Tragic story but I still don't understand why anyone would commit suicide over such a silly thing.

Because British and their holy fascination with the royal family I'd imagine. Granted I'm assuming like a ************ here but I can't help but imagine that the nurse was all ashamed about the whole thing, between the media coverage and the fact that it was a member of the royal family she took her own life.

Is there a British obsession with the royal family? As an Englishman I haven't really noticed this. The past couple of years have sort of rekindled people's interest in them because of the royal wedding and the jubilee, but really there's plenty of people who couldn't give a shit what they do. Middleton being pregnant is big news in the same way Beyonce being pregnant was big news, just more celebrity gossip.

You make it sound like it was out of respect for the Royals the nurse killed herself, but it's likely a combination of potential huge legal repercussions and other already-present psychological problems.

Sorry, I was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly drunk when I posted that. It's not like I think the English have a fascination with the Royal Family or anything like that, however I do think that there are still people nowadays who......revere them? That's probably not the word I'm looking for but you get what I mean right? Hell, I'm probably totally wrong in that thought.

Anyway, the point I was trying(horribly) to make in my initial post was that cocking up with regards to the Royal Family probably contributed an enormous amount of stress/anxiety/what have you, which coupled with any already present psychological problems like you mentioned, led to the suicide.

[sub][sub]I really gotta stop posting while drunk.....[/sub][/sub]

 

[anthony87]

snip

snip

See the post above for a clearer idea of what I meant. To be honest...I don't even remember making that first post :/

 

[capper42]

Sorry, I was reaaaaaaaaaaaaaly drunk when I posted that. It's not like I think the English have a fascination with the Royal Family or anything like that, however I do think that there are still people nowadays who......revere them? That's probably not the word I'm looking for but you get what I mean right? Hell, I'm probably totally wrong in that thought.

Anyway, the point I was trying(horribly) to make in my initial post was that cocking up with regards to the Royal Family probably contributed an enormous amount of stress/anxiety/what have you, which coupled with any already present psychological problems like you mentioned, led to the suicide.

[sub][sub]I really gotta stop posting while drunk.....[/sub][/sub]

Whilst there probably are those that go a bit far with their devotion, I think most people would now just consider them as celebrities like any other. They definitely appear a lot in the media, but that's because people like to read about them. I'd say few really respect them and consider them leaders (I could be completely wrong, but that's how I see it). Like you said though, I'm sure there are some that see them this way.

But yeah, the fact that it was such a high profile patient she gave information on must have had a huge impact. Just think how differently people would be portraying her had she not killed herself.

 

[EHKOS]

2) The Royals got their Freemason assassin squads on the case.

That's actually the conclusion I came to at first It's not like it's the craziest theory.

OT:Sad about the nurse, reminds me of the time that woman died holding her bladder for a Wii Radio DJs have always seemed like jerks to me though.

 

[Aussie502]

I have a question, I have read like 10 news articles about this and I still can't figure out that HOW HAVE PEOPLE ASSUMED THE THE SUICIDE WAS LINKED TO THE PRANK CALL??

Are you really having a hard time understanding how a massively humiliating event could lead to a suicide? Or are you being sarcastic?

If you're really implying she was humiliated enough to commit suicide while being the mother of 2 children...then all I can say is that was an incredibly selfish and stupid move on her behalf.
In that case she was either incredibly weak-willed or already suffering from bad mental conditions. These kind of people commit suicide over almost anything, it's hard to stop them NOT committing suicide.
Like those weak-willed girls who who commit suicide after people keep texting them "u r fat" for a month.

wow, you have no empathy at all do you? "oh she was week-willed, so she would have killed herself sooner or later anyway" is not a good point. some people can't stand a huge public humiliation, the embarrassment and feeling of guilt for what she did could probably break a lot of people.

That being said I don't blame the DJ's who did this. Its a joke gone horribly wrong and I doubt they could have predicted or even imagined this outcome.

Also, from what I've heard, the hospital was extremely angry at the leak and I would assume that the nurse was disciplined very harshly. It's not hard to imagine the kind of backlash she would have received by not only her superiors, but also her co-workers and even members of the Royal Family at the hospital. We also don't know what was actually said to her, but I can imagine the sort of pressure she'd be under after that fiasco. It makes me feel incredible sorrow for what she's probably gone through after all this, and then feeling the need to end her own life just to get away from it.

EDIT: After listening to the recording again, the nurse sounded really quite star struck. She clearly wasn't thinking correctly when answering to the blatantly terrible impersonation.

I still don't know how the DJ's couldn't have foreseen what the repercussions were if they were successful in their prank call. Clearly their were 2 outcomes:
1. The hospital tells them to go away or;
2. They give details on a patient which could have landed them in really big trouble.

So what was the point of the prank? To get a nurse in trouble? Otherwise, it seemed like an unnecessary waste of time making the prank call in the first place.

 

[AldUK]

Tragic story but I still don't understand why anyone would commit suicide over such a silly thing.

Because British and their holy fascination with the royal family I'd imagine. Granted I'm assuming like a ************ here but I can't help but imagine that the nurse was all ashamed about the whole thing, between the media coverage and the fact that it was a member of the royal family she took her own life.

She was a foreign national, which is far more of a likely explanation why she took this so incredibly hard. If she was English born and bred, it would of been no big deal at all. It's not us that have a fascination with the royals, its the rest of the world who believe our royal family are a bigger deal than they are. (A tourist attraction.)

I'm not trying to sound insensitive here and this is tragic, but we in the UK are just as stunned as everyone else.

 

[sam13lfc]

The nurse who died wasn't the one who gave out details, she referred the callers to a nurse who then gave out details. I hope she didn't commit suicide...it would be a strange thing to commit suidice over as well; she wasn't under any blame, neither was the nurse who actually gave out details.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Because British and their holy fascination with the royal family I'd imagine.

lol I hate this stereotype so fucking much

She wasn't even of British origin

I have a question, I have read like 10 news articles about this and I still can't figure out that HOW HAVE PEOPLE ASSUMED THE THE SUICIDE WAS LINKED TO THE PRANK CALL??

The story about the prank call was pretty big news here. Questions were being asked about the hospital, what damage it would do to its reputation etc, then the woman in the middle of all of this commits suicide a few days later. Do you really think that's a coincidence?

If you're really implying she was humiliated enough to commit suicide while being the mother of 2 children...then all I can say is that was an incredibly selfish and stupid move on her behalf.
In that case she was either incredibly weak-willed or already suffering from bad mental conditions. These kind of people commit suicide over almost anything, it's hard to stop them NOT committing suicide.
Like those weak-willed girls who who commit suicide after people keep texting them "u r fat" for a month.

worst comment I've ever read

 

[Aussie502]

The nurse who died wasn't the one who gave out details, she referred the callers to a nurse who then gave out details. I hope she didn't commit suicide...it would be a strange thing to commit suidice over as well; she wasn't under any blame, neither was the nurse who actually gave out details.

If this is the case then the nurse who gave out the details had every right to be star-struck as she was told that it actually was the Queen and Prince Charles who were on the phone. If she was the one who indeed was blamed for this leak and did in fact commit suicide because of it, then this is a deeply depressing story...

 

[Ringo_Plumen]

Until I get more details I'm reluctant to see this as much more than tragic coincidence. I will say however I don't think I'd consider this a prank call. They were impersonating others (bad impersonations as it may be) in order to gain personal information they had no right to know about, that seems kinda illegal in my book regardless of whether any harm was intended or not, I don't think you can blame them for the suicide though, something more we don't know about must have been going on if you ask me.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

I still don't know how the DJ's couldn't have foreseen what the repercussions were if they were successful in their prank call. Clearly their were 2 outcomes:
1. The hospital tells them to go away or;
2. They give details on a patient which could have landed them in really big trouble.

So what was the point of the prank? To get a nurse in trouble? Otherwise, it seemed like an unnecessary waste of time making the prank call in the first place.

Well, it´s obvious, isn´t it ?
The point of the prank call (of all radio prank calls, really) is humiliation.
You get somebody to say something dumb or fool them into thinking they are talking to somebody famous and then your audience can laugh at the stoooopid idiot.
Here in Germany, a prank call once utterly annihilated the career and life of a Master Seargent.
So, you know, that´s fun.

 

[Aussie502]

I still don't know how the DJ's couldn't have foreseen what the repercussions were if they were successful in their prank call. Clearly their were 2 outcomes:
1. The hospital tells them to go away or;
2. They give details on a patient which could have landed them in really big trouble.

So what was the point of the prank? To get a nurse in trouble? Otherwise, it seemed like an unnecessary waste of time making the prank call in the first place.

Well, it´s obvious, isn´t it ?
The point of the prank call (of all radio prank calls, really) is humiliation.
You get somebody to say something dumb or fool them into thinking they are talking to somebody famous and then your audience can laugh at the stoooopid idiot.
Here in Germany, a prank call once utterly annihilated the career and life of a Master Seargent.
So, you know, that´s fun.

Ah, of course, how silly of me to not understand that. Personally, if they're going to attempt to humiliate a nurse on national radio, they better be responsible for the repercussions. Saying that the death was "unforeseeable" is a cop-out of an excuse. Of course the hospital is going to take breaches of information security very seriously, especially when the patient is a huge public figure such as Kate Middleton. This whole story infuriates and saddens me

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

1. A prank call like this isn't harmful, considering the details given out weren't explicit or damaging. In the US we do have a law called HIPAA, not sure of the UK though, but there are extensive security measures for people who are of celebrity that are hospitalized. In other words, it was a breach of security and the nurse was pretty stupid for not attempting to confirm the identity of the callers. Moreover, the royal family didn't even make a stink about it.
2. The fact that this nurse decided to self-induce her kicking of the bucket probably isn't directly related to this incident. People don't just decide on suicide like that, there's a lot of other factors in their lives that lead up to this action. And also you cannot blame other people's actions for someone's inability to deal with life anyway. The person pulling the trigger so-to-speak is the one to blame.
3. I really think the Radio DJ's weren't malicious, weren't looking for this to happen and genuinely feel bad that this lady died. Whether they feel guilt or not is their privy and doesn't need to be shared with the world if they choose not to. They've even been hiatus'd off the air and put out their own statement of regret/condolences so anyone seeking a witch-hunt here is just attention seeking and worse IMO than the pranksters.
4. Back to point 2, if anything this is a non-issue until any other details surrounding the life of this nurse comes out. Again, its not just one stress factor that pushes someone to drastic measures like suicide, its a buildup of trauma over life itself, and if she was really that bad off and didn't seek help... It sucks, but that is life.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Ok. I'm from Australia, if that gives any context to anything that I say, but basically, most Australian radio personalities are dickheads. That's their job.

My opinion:

The DJs could not have reasonably expected the nurse to commit suicide. I think it was a dick move making the call in the first place, but certainly was not done with the intention of doing harm to the nurse. What they did was stupid, not irreprehensible. That said, that's why prank calls are funny, and this one was no exception. The British equivalent will be having a field day with our idiot DJs whilst knowing they'd have done the same thing.

The nurse would definitely have committed suicide. There is no way that is a coincidence. I think people from her work didn't let it go and she probably lost her job and future prospects, or was at least severely reprimanded, for the damage done to the image of the hospital, although I don't hold it against them, someone probably thought it was more important than I do. It's a real shame that that was the only thing she felt she could do, but I hardly think it was the incident and coverage alone.

I also think it's perfectly fine to have taken the Queen at face value. I don't know how good a job the guys did of impersonating royal staff, but if Kate Middleton is staying at the hospital and the Queen calls, I wouldn't think twice either. That sounds about right to me. It's not like there's a special line just for the Queen straight to the Director of Nursing's office.

Basically, it's just really unfortunate that someone lost their life over this bit of stupidity, but I don't blame anyone except the people who I'm pretty sure would have to have taunted her about it, and possibly a heavyhanded management. I don't blame the nurse and I don't blame the DJs.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

Ah, of course, how silly of me to not understand that. Personally, if they're going to attempt to humiliate a nurse on national radio, they better be responsible for the repercussions. Saying that the death was "unforeseeable" is a cop-out of an excuse. Of course the hospital is going to take breaches of information security very seriously, especially when the patient is a huge public figure such as Kate Middleton. This whole story infuriates and saddens me

I was already infuriated when I heard that those morons had the nerve to annoy hospital staff with their irrelevant bullshit. Everybody who works at a hospital (and especially nurses) has A LOT to do in a day, so the least those shitheads could have done is realize that their call would be wasting the time of people who are an actual asset to society, scrap the idea and do another line of coke.

 

[Terminal Blue]

People don't just decide on suicide like that, there's a lot of other factors in their lives that lead up to this action.

However, there is often a final "push" which actually drives someone to go through with it.

Suicide isn't something people are generally capable of planning. People might think about it on and off for years and years, but that doesn't necessarily entail any significant risk of actually going through with it. Usually, people kill themselves during a very brief window of time in which they feel incredibly desperate. The only exception is people with very severe personality disorders and other forms of mental illness who really can't control their actions, and those people would almost certainly not be able to work - particularly not in such a high-pressure environment.

So no. It's not inevitable that someone would have killed themselves just because they did. That's a really awful excuse for what is essentially a failure of the mental health system. In the vast majority of cases a person who kills themselves would not have done it had they been prevented for even a matter of hours or days. It's an extremely temporary feeling which can be caused by particular events in a person's life, it's not some generalized state of being which a person will inevitably act on eventually.

I don't know if that makes any difference to how we should feel about this particular incident, I'm only refuting the idea that a single incident cannot be the direct cause of someone committing suicide. In all likelihood, she actually did kill herself as a direct consequence of this incident, and yes, it's likely she had preexisting mental health problems, but a pretty large percentage of the population does. We kind of have to live with that.

If you think that, regardless, it should be okay to humiliate people in front of a mass audience for entertainment purposes, then fine, that's a legitimate position. But to simply assume that someone who kills themselves would have done it anyway irrespective of that is just an excuse.

 

[AldUK]

Apparently, thanks to the intense backlash from this prank, the female part of the radio duo is receiving counselling and is under suicide watch herself. They have both had to delete their facebook and twitter accounts and both of them have Australian police watching their houses thanks to waves of death threats.

I mean... what they did was wrong. There's no question in my mind about that. But it seems like their lives and certainly their careers are finished from a stupid prank.

Captcha: ticked off - yeah, lot of people are, captcha.

 

[smithy_2045]

It's a situation like this where no one wins. The nurse has taken her life, triggered because of the humiliation of falling for such a prank. The other nurse who actually gave out the details will likely suffer considerably herself. And the 2 DJs are in an extremely vulnerable mental state themselves because there has been an unforeseeably immense backlash against what they thought was a harmless prank call. Sure, it was poor judgment from the DJs to make such a call, but prank calls are a staple source of "comedy" for DJs, and the vast majority of the time nothing is made of it. The only difference between this one and most others is the enormous media frenzy around it.

 

[MagunBFP]

Gotta love the guys here saying that the DJs couldn't have reasonable expected the suicide as a result of their prank.

They have no idea about the person on the other end of the line, that the receptionist took her own life is probably because its her job to screen the calls. She didn't and she let the call go through, thats her bad, and as a result she was probably fired (we are talking about looking after the Royal Family)... so fired, around christmas, lets face it gettng fired for a fuck up that bad, its safe to say she's not getting a job at another hospital so things look very bleak. If the nursing staff in England are as over-worked as they are over here then she's no doubt been under a considerable amount of pressure for a while... its not hard to see how someone might possible turn to suicide out of sheer hopelessness for the future.

But at least the 2DayFM got their joke... and while I think the DJs are morons for trying to prank call in the first place, the producers would have oked it as well, Kyle Sandilands has proven to them that there is no such thing as bad publicity so I expect as soon as something else news worthy happens this will disappear the DJs will be back pranking and humiliating anyone else they can until the next thing blows up in their faces. Just remember though you might feel outraged now, or you might feel sorry for the people she left behind but in less then two weeks you'll have forgotten all about it and you won't care anymore.