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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Cases of death by drowning have always been picked up by the media, especially when of political significance, such as the recently debated high number of drowned asylum seekers and children.
OBJECTIVE: Due to the abovenamed background, data on victims of drowning were retrospectively collected from the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the University of Munich for the period January 2011-December 2016. The study provides information and analysis on all autopsies of victims of drowning incidents (except drowning in the bath) during this time period. Material and methods: Altogether 341 cases of drowning were examined (70% men, 30% women), of which 11 were children below the age of 14 years. The collective consisted of 25% non-German citizens, including 12 asylum seekers.
RESULTS: In total, more than 50% of the victims died in flowing water, mainly during the summer months. Of the cases 54.5% were classified as unnatural death, most of which were due to accidents such as falling into water. Only 5 cases (1.5%) could be clearly classified as a "natural" cause of death with respect to the trigger and in 44% of the events the manner of death remained unclear. In 161 of the 341 drowning incidents (47.2%) alcohol analysis was carried out and in 112 (32.8%) a chemical toxicological examination was conducted.
CONCLUSION: Due to the complexity of cases of drowning, from a medical point of view the standardized implementation of alcohol analysis as well as chemical toxicological examinations would be desirable. © 2019, Springer Medizin Verlag GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature.
Language: de |