ABSTRACT
Introduction: Drowning refers to death within 24 hours of asubmersion incident. According to the WHO, it is the processof experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid. Determining the cause of death in bodiesfound in water is quite challenging which can be achievedwith thorough investigation and complete autopsy after whichonly the pathologist certifies a death based on drowning. Theexperts in the field of Forensic Medicine are facing difficultiesin estimation of time, cause and mode of death. Hence, thepresent study aimed to analyse the various aspects of drowningdeaths whose Post Mortem were conducted in the mortuary ofOsmania General Hospital in the year 2004.Material and Methods: The present study was a retrospectivestudy which was conducted among 150 dead subjects. All thedead bodies recovered from different sources of submersionirrespective of age or sex and either with fresh or decomposedbodies were included in this study. Detailed history related toplace of the incident, type of water body, position of the bodyand other relevant findings were obtained from the previousrecords.Results: The majority of the subjects with drowning were82.6% of the males followed by 17.3% of the females. Theplace of drowning was found to be in ponds (41.3%) and ditch(29.3%) followed by rivers (17.3%) and lakes (8%). The timeof drowning was seen in majority of the subjects i.e. 60% ofsubjects died 09:00-13:00 and 25.3% subjects during 13:01-18:00 followed by 8% at 0:0-8:59 and 6.6% at 18:01-23:59Conclusion: The magnitude of drowning is higher amongmales in and around the jurisdiction of Osmania. It has beenproved that drowning has become an undervalued problemwith inclusion of child population. Hence, there is a necessityfor prevention among all the ages by the government so thatoverall burden caused by drowning can be reduced.