Cassady
Verified Attorney
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- Jun 10, 2020
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Dry drowning or secondary drowning is not a medically accepted term...IMO.Dry drowning happens in a percentage of cases. The throat locks down to prevent water entering the lungs, and the victim suffocates.
Deceased persons are often found unclothed in moving bodies of water, due to actions such as currents and tides. And if this was an accident that happened while looking for somewhere to urinate... his trousers may have been undone, which would make it more likely for his trousers to come off. And if his wallet was in his trouser pocket, and his shoes weren't tightly laced, it's all going to be more likely to be lost. He was in the river a long time, and travelled eight miles downstream. That's a lot of agitated water.
I understand why the family finds both suspicious, but as someone who reads about forensics, I can understand why the medical examiner and LE don't. Both are commonly found in drowning cases.
MOO
For many years it was believed the 10-15% of drowning victims did not have water in their lungs, as is normally associated with drowning. This has been referred to as "dry drowning" too, but more recently this is referred to as drowning without aspiration. Studies in the past 30 years have called the 10-15% number into question, finding much lower percentages, and suggesting the examination of natural or other causes of death when drowning victim's lungs do not have water in them:
‘Dry drowning’ and other myths
Drowning is a common and often preventable cause of death, especially in children. The mass media often propagate misinformation about “dry” and “secondary” drowning, diverting attention from appropriate efforts to prevent drowning and rescue and treat those who do drown.
www.ccjm.org
“In the absence of the common finding of significant pulmonary edema in the victim’s respiratory system, to conclude his or her death was caused by ‘drowning without aspiration’ is unwise."
Drowning without aspiration: is this an appropriate diagnosis? - PubMed
It has been reported that 10-15% of drowning victims do not aspirate water. We have revisited the original studies quoted to reach this conclusion and find it is without foundation. Sudden cardiac standstill is known to occur on land and, therefore, may also occur when the victim is in water. In...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Here is a full article that details drowning:
The experience of drowning
Internationally, drowning is a leading cause of accidental death that features in many legal cases. In these cases, possible mitigations and the ‘pain and suffering’ in terms of the duration and subjective experience of drowning are often ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov