Nurse Jacintha Saldanha of King Edward VII Hospital, London

People around the world have been both saddened and outraged by the recent tragedy in which Nurse Jacintha Saldanha committed suicide after transferring to the primary nurse of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, a prank phone call from Australian radio DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian. In the prank call, made to the King Edward VII Hospital in London, the DJs impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, and received confidential information about Kate’s medical condition related to her difficult pregnancy.

The reaction to the suicide has been swift. Angry messages began pouring in to the Sydney-based radio station 2Day, on which the prank call was aired multiple times, and to the DJs various online messaging accounts. The DJs themselves were crushed. Something they had done as a light-hearted prank, never expecting even to get through, led to the death of a fine nurse who was a wife and a mother of two. In the aftermath their show was canceled, though as of this writing the DJs have not been fired. The radio station did, however, put a ban on future prank calls, and pledged at least $500,000 to a fund supporting the bereaved family.

Who’s to blame?

It’s easy to condemn the pranksters, and put all the blame on them for the death of an innocent, hard-working woman. Yet their actions form only the most visible part of a vast web of people, influences, and events that resulted in the tragedy of Nurse Saldanha’s death. If we follow out some of the strands of that web, we find that thousands, even millions of people are involved.

Let’s follow some of those strands.

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