In a proverbial case of closing the barn door after the horses have fled, most sites have now yanked the audio of the infamous prank call two Australian DJs made last week to the London hospital where a finally pregnant Duchess of Cambridge (nee Kate Middleton) was being treated for acute morning sickness. But here’s the transcript – courtesy of the New York Daily News (December 7, 2012):
MEL GRIEG: Oh hello there, could I please speak to Kate please, my granddaughter?
NURSE A: Oh yes, just hold on ma’am.
GREIG: Thank you.
MICHAEL CHRISTIAN: Are they putting us through?
GREIG: Yes.
CHRISTIAN: If this has worked, it’s the easiest prank call we’ve ever made. Your accent sucked by the way, I just wanted you to know.
GREIG: I’m not used to playing old 80-year-olds.
[phone picks up]
GREIG: Kate my darling, are you there?
NURSE B: Good morning, ma’am, this is the nurse speaking. How may I help you?
GREIG: Hello, I’m just after my granddaughter Kate. I wanted to see how her little tummy bug is going.
NURSE B: She’s sleeping at the moment. And she had an uneventful night. And sleep is good for her. As we speak, she’s been getting some fluids to rehydrate her. She was quite dehydrated when she came in. But she’s stable at the moment.
GREIG: Okay, ill just feed my little corgies then.
CHRISTIAN: Lovely. But they’re all okay, everything’s alright?
NURSE B: Yes, she’s quite stable at the moment. She hasn’t had any retching with me, since I’ve been on duty. And she’s been sleeping on and off.
CHRISTIAN: Wonderful.
NURSE B: And I think it’s difficult sleeping in a strange bed as well.
CHRISTIAN: Yes, of course! It’s hardly the palace, is it?
GREIG: Oh, it’s nothing like the palace, is it, Charles?
END
Unfortunately, this transcript does not convey the plainly, if not deliberately, unconvincing way these DJs impersonated the Queen and Prince Charles throughout. More importantly, it does not convey the deferential and unassuming way Nurse A took their call.
Tragically, this nurse killed herself on Friday. But who in her right mind could have foreseen this?
To be honest, when I heard the prank call, I thought this nurse was a gullible fool for putting them through. I thought her colleague was doubly so for prattling on about Kate’s condition despite the DJs doing all they could to make clear it was just a prank call. And I have no doubt that their superiors made them feel like fools even though, since Nurse A killed herself, hospital authorities have been going out of their way to give the impression that were nothing but “supportive.”
More to the point, though, media outlets all over the world were airing similar thoughts as they encouraged uproarious laughter at these nurses’ expense. Indeed, before she killed herself, you would’ve been hard-pressed to hear a single media personality say what everyone is conveying now, namely:
This poor nurse, she only did what any royal subject would’ve done.
A sentiment that says a lot about the reflexive genuflection, obsequiousness and self-sacrifice (all too literal in this case) that monarchy fosters. But I digress….
What really bothers me about this tragedy is the way the media are acting as if they condemned the DJs from the outset; whereas, in fact, they compounded Nurse A’s humiliation beyond measure. Now they are covering the backlash against these DJs, which includes being summarily fired by their radio station, with the same facilitating relish with which they covered the pride these DJs took in pulling off their prank call.
But let’s be mindful that everybody had a good laugh; and that nobody could have foreseen that Nurse A would kill herself. It is instructive in this respect that Nurse B, who was pranked to a far greater degree, did not.
Meanwhile, these DJs’ lives have become an emotional train wreck – complete with sorrowful TV confessionals that must make even Oprah wince.
‘There’s not a minute that goes by that we don’t think about her family and what they must be going through,’ 2DayFM radio host Mel Greig told Australia’s ‘A Current Affair,’ her voice shaking. ‘We’re gutted… The thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching.’
(Associated Press, December 10, 2012)
Gutted? Isn’t that what they refer to famously in nearby Japan as hari-kiri? But seriously, should we be worried now that the guilt the entire world is now heaping on these DJs might drive one of them to commit suicide too…?
Anyway, instead of covering this as just another perverse ratings spectacle, the media should empathize with reflective editorials admitting that:
There but for the grace of God go we.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for the family and colleagues of Nurse A for their incomprehensible loss. But I hope I’ll be forgiven for feeling a little sympathy for the DJs as well.