Drowning in forensic medicine – an overview and incidence during the 30 years period at the Department of Forensic Medicine and Criminalistics in Rijeka

With an overview of deaths by drowning -a common accident based on asphyxia, we bring a unique review of the recent literature. The interest in this topic can be explained, on one hand, by epidemiology. Namely, each year a large number of people, especially children, die in water. On the other hand, deaths by drowning often involve a spectrum of various topics from the field of forensic medicine. While writing this article, we tried to make a clear distinction between drowned bodies and bodies retrieved from water, to clarify the pathophysiological sequence of death events caused by drowning, and present typical pathoanatomical findings. In addition to the "classic drowning", we will also show some less but equally interesting deaths involving submersion in water. Along with the facts listed in the international literature, we also bring the data collected through the thirty-year documentation, which will make our work more interesting and valuable.