This is an extreme story and, like I said, something occured that was quite rare. I wondered about the weight of the water, too. She was not camping in the canyon, rather, she was hiking from the top to the bottom and had friends with her. There is also a spigot at the bottom, I believe, for refilling water but I'm not sure. This is just an example of overdoing it. The average person would have to worry more about dehydrating rather than over hydrating. Since I was just remembering this story, I did some research to make sure it wasn't an impossibility. The article I quoted was by a Nutrition professor at UC Davis.

Ecstasy? Where'd that come from?

Ferrick

> > Two things you shouldn't do.
> >
> > Don't drown yourself by drinking too much...water. Yes, you can O.D. on water. I read a story a few years ago about a lady who was hiking in the Grand Canyon heeded the warnings to drink plenty of fluids but she took it to an extreme and brought a few gallons worth of di-hydrogen oxide to drink throughout the day. Unfortunately, she drank WAY more than she needed. With all the extra water in her body, her cells absorbed a lot of it to reach equilibrium with the outside environment and essentially drowned. With all that water, they weren't able to perform their normal functions. This is called water intoxication and is rare. You would need to drink a LOT of water in a short amount of time for it to happen. "An overdose of water overwhelms the body's cells, in part by diluting the electrolytes, sodium and potassium. This causes the cells to balloon up and disrupt normal body functioning. In the brain, swelling occurs, causing disorientation and even death."
>
>
> i just have two issues with this story:
>
> first, wouldn't the body just stop absorbing it? Even if it did, it would shunt it to the bladder and expel it.
>
> Second, she carried a few GALLONS of water while hiking around the grand canyon? Assuming this is an all day hike, she'd have to have other stuff- - - food and a knife at minimum, unless she doesn't know what she's doing in which case she only has food. She should have a snakebite kit too, but maybe not. Let's say she just carries her food and the water. A few gallons of water is incredibly heavy to lug around all day. She'd collapse before she managed to drink enough of it unless she had it in a frame pack, and even then she'd have one heck of a backache after an hour or so.
>
> I hike/camp outside all the time and am pretty well conditioned for it, and I certainly wouldn't think of carrying even a gallon of water with me. I have 2 quarts in canteens and a water filter.
>
> As to the kids dying from water after taking ecstacy, I would think the drug would have a lot to do with their death ;)