The other day, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, a pair of Australian radio DJs pulled off a funny prank call, phoning the London hospital where Kate Middleton was staying and tricking her nurse into giving private information about the Duchess of Cambridge’s medical condition (the DJs pretended that they were the Queen and Prince Charles). The thing was so preposterous that you can’t believe they got away with it. But they did. The receptionist at the hospital who answered their call quickly and thoughtlessly put the call through to the Duchess’s nurse, who thought she was speaking to Buckingham Palace, not a live Australian radio audience.

That receptionist, Jacintha Saldanha, was found dead this morning in London, a suicide. 

What now, Mel Greig and Michael Christian? How do you feel now?

UPDATE: Look, let me be clear: I don’t think these DJs are literally the worst people in the world. As many of you know, that’s a meme started by Keith Olbermann. The prank strikes me as relatively harmless, and besides, the nurse who killed herself over it is responsible for her own death. Nevertheless, it’s shocking, and instructive, to see how what one thinks of as innocent teasing can have catastrophic consequences.