Nurse that answered prank call about Kate Middleton found dead

[doxdogy]

I thought that the first time I heard the call, before she killed herself. I'm not going to change my opinion of it now because she decided to kill herself.

Did you listen to the call? No way anyone reasonably thinks that is the voice of an 86 year old woman. Further, everyone raise your hand if you think that the queen of England is calling any hospital herself to check on her daughter-in-law. No hands up? Exactly.

What does an 86 year old woman sound like? My dad was 83 when he passed away and he did not sound 83. I come from a family of for lack of a better term, young voices.

To go so far as to call the woman an idiot is lacking in basic sympathy/empathy. Doesn't matter what she thought, she fell for it.

 

[Jennasis]

She was a nurse, not a receptionist.

I'd read she was assigned to cover the switchboard at that time. Perhaps in the UK that is a role commonly taken on by the nursing staff?

 

[teller80]

The Hospital have confirmed that she was not questioned or disciplined over the event.

Does this sound odd to you? That the hospital didn't question or discipline her? Doesn't England have HIPPA? I would think that over here the nurse would of at least been put on temporary leave pending an investigation.

In any event, it's very sad.

 

[cazzie]

Does this sound odd to you? That the hospital didn't question or discipline her? Doesn't England have HIPPA? I would think that over here the nurse would of at least been put on temporary leave pending an investigation.

In any event, it's very sad.

It doesn't sound right to me, I am pretty sure they would have questioned her as to why she put the call through. TBH it is what you would expect them to do.

 

[FireDancer]

What does an 86 year old woman sound like? My dad was 83 when he passed away and he did not sound 83. I come from a family of for lack of a better term, young voices.

To go so far as to call the woman an idiot is lacking in basic sympathy/empathy. Doesn't matter what she thought, she fell for it.

I don't get the sympathy/empathy thing. Am I supposed to alter my view of the original action because later it results in a death or suicide? I don't think so myself. When I first heard the call I think the people who fell for it were idiots for falling for it. The people I was with at the time we heard it all said they thought they were idiots for falling for it. I suspect many people here, whether they admit it or not, thought they were idiots for falling for it.

I'm not going to alter my opinion on that because one of them may have taken their life because of it. That just doesn't make any sense. I think that all the people who fall for the fake calls by journalists or DJs or phishing scammers are kind of naive. Is it only ok to think it is kind of dumb if after they fall for it they don't decide to kill themselves?

To put it another way. Person A does something dumb and everyone agrees it is dumb. They even say so. Person B does the exact same thing that person A did, and that everyone thought was dumb, but it ends up killing them. Now, why wouldn't it be just as dumb for person B as it was for person A. I'm looking for the logical answer, not the emotional one.

I think it is time to agree to disagree on this one. I'm just don't really care that much to keep going around and around.

 

[Domo]

The radio DJs have been suspended. Sorry if this has been mentioned. The current belief is that they will return, just not for the time being "as a mark of respect".

The Royal Family does not blame the deceased nurse.

 

[mrssmith06]

How awful!!!

 

[kate_wdw]

This is sad, sad, sad, whether it was suicide or whether this poor woman just spent her final days distressed over work-related problems.

That said, I think that blaming the DJs is ridiculous. It was a stupid prank, (and unless health care privacy laws are significantly different in Great Britain than they are in the US), the responsibility for releasing health care information to unauthorized persons falls squarely on the hospital. Given her celebrity status, extra security procedures should have been put in place.

 

[merryweather20]

This is sad, sad, sad, whether it was suicide or whether this poor woman just spent her final days distressed over work-related problems.

That said, I think that blaming the DJs is ridiculous. It was a stupid prank, (and unless health care privacy laws are significantly different in Great Britain than they are in the US), the responsibility for releasing health care information to unauthorized persons falls squarely on the hospital. Given her celebrity status, extra security procedures should have been put in place.

If it was a prank they should have hung up when they were transferred to the nurse. If their aim was a prank, and some funny comments about their poor accents, fine, but in order to sell that it wasn't malcious, they had to hang up.

 

[Disney Doll]

I see a couple of different issues here.

#1 the media and their all-consuming need to try and get every shred of information, pictures etc. about these people. My God, are they not able to have even a shred of privacy? What is it that people want to hear??? That the Duchess is barfing her guts up. I mean seriously...would you want every detail of your life displayed for all the world to see and know about?

#2 the nurse. If she did take her own life, then my guess is that she had some underlying issues and this was the "straw that broke the camel's back" if you know what I mean. Yes, it would be somewhat embarrassing to have not recognized that the people calling were not the Queen & Prince Charles. Yes, she might have even lost her job over putting the call through.... but neither of those things is suicide-worthy. We don't know her personal beliefs. Perhaos she was of a culture where losing "face" is a fate worse than death and she felt that she lost "face" with this incident?

#3 The DJs-frankly if i was them I would feel horrible. I hope they do. Because intentional or not, their joke has caused an inordinate amount of pain to a lot of people.

Society seems to have lost the "common decency" gene.....

 

[bellanotte10]

I see a couple of different issues here.

#1 the media and their all-consuming need to try and get every shred of information, pictures etc. about these people. My God, are they not able to have even a shred of privacy? What is it that people want to hear??? That the Duchess is barfing her guts up. I mean seriously...would you want every detail of your life displayed for all the world to see and know about?

#2 the nurse. If she did take her own life, then my guess is that she had some underlying issues and this was the "straw that broke the camel's back" if you know what I mean. Yes, it would be somewhat embarrassing to have not recognized that the people calling were not the Queen & Prince Charles. Yes, she might have even lost her job over putting the call through.... but neither of those things is suicide-worthy. We don't know her personal beliefs. Perhaos she was of a culture where losing "face" is a fate worse than death and she felt that she lost "face" with this incident?

#3 The DJs-frankly if i was them I would feel horrible. I hope they do. Because intentional or not, their joke has caused an inordinate amount of pain to a lot of people.

Society seems to have lost the "common decency" gene.....

I totally agree with #1 especially with the issues the family have with the media and the late Princess Diana's car accident.

 

[joviroxx]

#3 The DJs-frankly if i was them I would feel horrible. I hope they do. Because intentional or not, their joke has caused an inordinate amount of pain to a lot of people.

Society seems to have lost the "common decency" gene.....

You know, its easy to put the blame on these two DJ"s. But truth is, the reason it got out of hand was that EVERY SINGLE MEDIA outlet put it out there as well. If the media hadn't picked it up, it would have been a non-issue.

The nurse was supported by the hospital and there was no sign that she was going to lose her job.

I remain that the issue was not the call. There had to have been some other issue going on with this poor woman. It was a juvenile, stupid attempt at a practical joke but in no way should it be held responsible for a suicide.

 

[happygirl]

To me it doesn't matter if she killed herself or if someone else did. This poor girl is still dead. I can;t even image being the butt of so many cruel jokes

 

[crashbb]

You know, its easy to put the blame on these two DJ"s. But truth is, the reason it got out of hand was that EVERY SINGLE MEDIA outlet put it out there as well. If the media hadn't picked it up, it would have been a non-issue.

The nurse was supported by the hospital and there was no sign that she was going to lose her job.

I remain that the issue was not the call. There had to have been some other issue going on with this poor woman. It was a juvenile, stupid attempt at a practical joke but in no way should it be held responsible for a suicide.

Did any media outlet actually name the nurse? I know that I didn't know her name until now (the news reports reporting her death identified her by name). Many people (here and, even more, elsewhere) are talking about her "public humiliation", but I didn't even know her name (and I didn't realize that anyone else did) or what she looked like, so it isn't like anyone would know it was her (which, to be publicly humiliated, would need to happen).

 

[joviroxx]

Did any media outlet actually name the nurse? I know that I didn't know her name until now (the news reports reporting her death identified her by name). Many people (here and, even more, elsewhere) are talking about her "public humiliation", but I didn't even know her name (and I didn't realize that anyone else did) or what she looked like, so it isn't like anyone would know it was her (which, to be publicly humiliated, would need to happen).

No they didn't. I certainly hadn't heard the name of either nurse.

 

[Jennasis]

You know, its easy to put the blame on these two DJ"s. But truth is, the reason it got out of hand was that EVERY SINGLE MEDIA outlet put it out there as well. If the media hadn't picked it up, it would have been a non-issue.

The nurse was supported by the hospital and there was no sign that she was going to lose her job.

I remain that the issue was not the call. There had to have been some other issue going on with this poor woman. It was a juvenile, stupid attempt at a practical joke but in no way should it be held responsible for a suicide.

The radio station that perpetrated the prank IS the media.

 

[kate_wdw]

If it was a prank they should have hung up when they were transferred to the nurse. If their aim was a prank, and some funny comments about their poor accents, fine, but in order to sell that it wasn't malcious, they had to hang up.

I don't see their actions as malicious at all. Like most people in comedy, they were seeing how far the could take the bit. Once they got connected, it wasn't as if they were trying to get detailed information about Kate or the baby. (The privacy breach could have been much, much worse if they had.) Instead, they upped the ridiculousness of the bit (with "Charles" interjecting comments) to see how far they could take it before she got suspicious.

 

[Albort]

The radio DJs have been suspended. Sorry if this has been mentioned. The current belief is that they will return, just not for the time being "as a mark of respect".

The Royal Family does not blame the deceased nurse.

radio DJ suspended themselves...
sad story definitely...

 

[joviroxx]

The radio station that perpetrated the prank IS the media.

Did you hear it on the radio station? I sure didn't. It was on NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, tabloid tv, etc.... THEY made it a story, not the radio station.

In fact, the call took place way before this poor woman killed herself. The call was on all major media networks. Where was the outrage then? No, no one said anything about the call until this happened. People want to blame the call, but I certainly didn't hear anyone coming down on this call when it first came out. People called it what it was.. a stupid sophmoric prank, certainly not the cause of a suicide.

At this point, its best for the DJ's to be off the air for awhile. But however unpopular and frankly, irrelevant, my opinion is, I still think its out of place to blame two DJ's for this porr woman's suicide.

 

[bittybabygrower]

I was so saddened to hear about this today. When a nurse makes a mistake, there is a guilt, no matter how big or small that mistake is. Plus I
Don't think they have HIPAA like we do here. I can see how it could happen, end if shift busy, trying to get things done, call comes in, doesn't require a password, put the call thru.

And I am sure the hospital administrators came down hard on her, even though they are saying the supported her. And then it goes out on the world news....

She isn't the first nurse to commit suicide over a mistake, and she won't be the last. People need to walk in our shoes for a few days.