Profile of Deaths Due to Drowning Reported for Medicolegal Autopsy at Tertiary Health Care Teaching Hospital

introduction: Drowning deaths are very crucial from medico-legal point of view. When we consider drowning deaths, surprisingly rising trend is seen in this aspect. Now it has become a global problem and there is great concern about reduction in mortality rate due to drowning. In view of this, thereis an immense need to understand the factors associated with drowning deaths, so that preventive measures can be taken to minimize such a global problem. To fulfill above goal present study was undertaken to understand the trend of drowning related deaths. This retrospective study was done by assessing theautopsy cases done in mortuary of SBHGM College during the period from 1st January 2021 to 31st December 2021. We found that 40 (76.92%) victims were male and 12 (23.07%) were female. Drowning deaths were most commonly seen in age groups of 21-30 years (25%). Married population constituted 35 (67.30%) cases and 16 (30.76%) were unmarried. Hindu community contributed to maximum number of cases with 51.92% cases. Students were the most common victims in drowning deaths accounting to 30.76% cases, followed by farmers i.e. 23.07% of cases. Maximum deaths occurred in month of September (21.15%) attributing to rainy season. Maximum drowning deaths occurred between 6 am to 12 pm (n=18, 34.61%) followed by 12 pm to 6 pm (n=15, 28.84%). Most of the drowned victims were retrieved from well (46.15%), followed by dam (13.46%), canal (13.46%). It was reported that most of the drowning deaths were accidental in manner (48.07%). From this study, it is clear that drowning deaths occurred mostly in males of age group of 21-30 years. The married and Hindu population is largely involved. Profession-wise distribution clearly indicates that students and farmers are quite susceptible to drowning tragedy. Most of the drowning cases were accidental in nature followed by suicides and occurred commonly in wells in rural area and lakes in urban area.