No problem.
Regarding the risks of drowning per se - forget the very, very cold water angle just for now - are you also saying that the risk of drowning for accidental water entry is small when you say ' very low'?
There’s a huge difference between identifying a likely cause and warning against a low risk but potentially fatal hazard.
To decide upon a probable cause and more importantly to rule out other possibilities means you need to be fairly confident in that the explanation offered is vastly more likely than any of the others.
You can drown in a paddling pool, and there probably at least once reported account of someone drowning in a puddle. The odds of it happening are down to the circumstances.you need to look at the mechanism to understand the risk factors.
To drown you need to aspirate water. Unconsciousness, Restricted mobility, neurological impairment or developmental factors increase the risk.
A head injury is perhaps the most obvious cause.
How credible the drowning hypothesis is depends evaluation of the risk as opposed to other possibilities.
If the water was very deep at that point then the likelihood of an accidental head injury is lowered, the small risk of cold shock is raised because of the chance of sudden deeper immersion into colder water.
This is the reason police warn kids against swimming in deep chalk pit lakes in the summer.
However a huge number of youngsters and adults ignore the warnings every year and drownings are tragic but very rare.
The bank is grassy and if there was a rock or similar hard object you would expect it to be of forensic value. But if it’s something fitting the criteria has been found and removed for analysis by police I would be even more surprised and the outright rejection of third party involvement.
Shallow water blackout is an example of a hard to detect cause in recreational swimmers. It’s not really applicable in this case
What the investigators need to decide if the likelihood of all or any of these factors is substantial.
In young infants drowning a bath or paddling pool is tragic and incidents are well reported . Thankfully they are rare , but awareness of the danger likely prevents deaths even . In that case any overstatement of risk is something I approve of.
Ruling out third party involvement that early bid what drew my attention to the case.
You can for example drown as a result of a head injury directly or indirectly inflicted by a third party. There doesn’t need to necessarily be a blood at the scene.
There are other examples where death from a fall is more certain, figuring out wether third party involvement was a factor can be even more challenging. In the absence of evidence those cases are generally closed quickly.
Maybe I’m missing something but what I’m seeing, is no reports of any signs of entry at the bank, a strong swimmer fully clothed and no indication of severe intoxication cognitive impairment or other factors.
Now the river search has come up empty the explanation becomes less plausible. But even if she did drown , the circumstances suggest that third party involvement can’t really be ruled out. The otherwise low risk means it becomes a possibility that’s worth investigating.
Cases are regularly closed even when obvious criminality is involved. Behind the scenes the ratiionale is sometimes to bring closure for families when answers and or justice are likely to remain elusive.
It seems a but early for that approach, but in this case I’m not privy to any inside information.
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