DROWNING DEATHS

Rama and Suresh, a young courting couple, were doing pleasure boating in the famous Badkhal Lake of Faridabad district on 6th Feb 1992. The time was around 4 pm. Fishing is not allowed there, but Suresh had surreptitiously brought a fishing rod with him, and when the boat was quite far away from everyone's gaze, he threw the line in the water. Little did he realize that he would come up against a most horrific and revolting catch. After some time he felt as if the line had got hooked to a great resistance. Anticipating a rich catch he tried to pull the line, but the line would not budge. However when both Rama and Suresh pulled the line, they were able to drag their `catch' up. The catch however caused Rama to faint immediately. It was not a super sized fish, as both of them had been contemplating. Surprise of all surprises: at the end of the line was dangling the decomposed body of a young woman!

A preliminary investigation revealed that the body was of a woman named Gulabo, who was a resident of Hissar. She was married to a 35 year old man Birju, who was a farmer. They had been married for almost 10 years, and had a happy married life, but lately there had been some tension in the house. On a couple of occasions Birju had even beaten Gulabo in a fit of anger. Gulabo had threatened many times to commit suicide, if he did not stop suspecting her.

On 3rd of Feb they had come to Faridabad to visit a relative. Their intention was to stay there for a day. Next day Birju returned to his native place, but Gulabo was not there with him. When the relatives and neighbors asked about her, he casually replied that she had run away with her paramour. He did not bother to report to the police even.

This was the story that was given to me when the body was brought to me for post mortem. The primary question of course was to find out if Gulabo had really died of drowning. Many readers may tend to believe that it is a superfluous question, as the mere finding of the dead body in the lake is sufficient to prove drowning. However this is not so. In our country it is usual for a murderer to first kill his victim and then throw the dead body in the water in the hope that the death would be passed off as a case of drowning.

In all cases of apparent drowning, the three most frequently asked questions are (i) whether the death was indeed caused by drowning? (ii) Whether the drowning was suicidal, homicidal, or accidental in nature, and (iii) What was the length of time for which the body was lying in the water? The order of these questions roughly reflects their importance as well. The first question is a very vital question. If the person was first killed by someone and then thrown in water, the cause of death will obviously not be drowning. Autopsy findings are very helpful in resolving this question. If a person was alive when he entered water, water would enter the air passages along with the inspired air. Within the air passages, this water gets mixed with the various sticky secretions present there. As the air gets in and out of the windpipe along with the respiratory efforts, this water gets churned in the windpipe, along with the sticky secretions. These secretions decrease the surface tension of water, much like soap, with the result that a lot of foam is generated. This foam is found at the mouth in almost all cases of true drowning (please reproduce fig. 16.10 on page 368 here). When we see this type of foam at the mouth of a dead person, the first presumption is that the death could be due to drowning. However if certain precautions are not observed, this test can cause one to arrive at wrong conclusions. For one thing, drowning is not the only cause of appearance of foam at the mouth. Foam is also seen in certain cases of death due to electrocution, epilepsy and in certain poisonings such as morphine, cocaine, barbiturates and organophosphorus poisoning. It is also seen in certain natural diseases, where due to certain abnormality of function, the lungs get loaded with water, a condition technically known as oedema of the lungs. One of these natural diseases is heart failure. In this condition, oedema of the lungs is very commonly seen, and this causes the froth to appear at the mouth (Please reproduce fig. 16.9 on page 368 here). Such a situation can easily cause confusion. However in all such cases the foam is not so fine as in cases of drowning. There is one more important difference. If the foam is cleared from the mouth, and then the chest is pressed, the foam reappears at the mouth only in cases of true drowning. In other cases the foam does not reappear at the mouth. The reason is that in cases of drowning, the whole respiratory passage is filled with foam, which results from the massive churning that goes on during the process of drowning.

When advanced putrefaction occurs, such as when the body was recovered from the water after a large gap of time, the foam is no more seen at the mouth, even in cases of true drowning. In such cases a very interesting test is conducted, which often tells correctly whether the death occurred due to drowning or not. This test depends upon the presence of certain microscopic unicellular plants in all bodies of water, known as diatoms. Diatoms belong to the class of plants known as Diatomaceae and consist of a box or `frustule' composed of two valves which fit together to enclose the cytoplasmic contents. Diatoms are so minute that they are visible under the microscope only. Under the microscope they appear as bright silvery symmetrical shaped bodies (Please reproduce fig. 16.14 on page 373 here). The valves are highly complex in shape and are extremely resistant to decay. The principle involved in the diatom test is simple. If the person was alive at the time of entry in the water, he must be respiring. This will cause millions of diatoms to enter his lungs along with water. To be sure, they will also enter the lungs of an already dead person by sheer mechanical pressure of water. But if the person was respiring, the force of inspiration may rupture some capillaries and some diatoms may gain entry in the blood stream. In an alive person, the beating heart would then pump these diatoms to far away places such as liver, brain, bone marrow, or kidney (Please reproduce fig.16.13 on page 372 here). If a dead person was thrown in water, diatoms can go only upto the level of lungs but no further, for obvious reasons. So one of the reasonable things to do would be to test microscopically for diatoms in such organs. If the diatoms are seen, the death is presumed to be due to drowning.

Another important sign which tells us that the death occurred indeed due to drowning, is the presence of what we call cadaveric spasm (Please reproduce fig. 2.6 on page 57 here). It is the persistence after death of the last action of the deceased. It generally occurs when the deceased was quite agitated during the last moments of his life. For instance, if the deceased was struggling with the killer just before death, and he pulled, say, some hair of the assailant, the hair would remain gripped in his fist. The last action of the deceased in this case was the clenching of the fist, and this action is preserved, as the muscles of the hand go in cadaveric spasm. In cases of drowning, the deceased makes frantic efforts to save himself, and tries to hold on to whatever is available, such as the proverbial weed, or even gravel. The presence of weeds in the hand tells positively that the person was alive when he entered water.

The question whether the drowning was suicidal, homicidal or accidental in nature is not always easy to answer. Much depends of the evaluation of circumstances. In India, drowning is a fairly common mode of committing suicide. Homicidal drowning is a rare entity, except in cases of infants and children. Abducted children are sometimes stripped of their ornaments and other costly possessions and then thrown in water. It is generally difficult to do the same with an adult, until and unless he is attacked unawares or was first stupefied by administering some narcotic drug. One feature which helps us to determine whether the drowning was suicidal or homicidal is to note whether the legs were tied or not (Please reproduce fig. 16.6 on page 364 here). If the legs are tied, generally the presumption is that the person was killed by drowning, or in other words, we can take drowning to be a homicidal one. However cases are not unknown when expert swimmers tied their own legs, before committing suicide by drowning to avoid instinctive self preservation by trying to swim out.

Sometimes injuries may be found on hands or legs (Please reproduce fig. 16.7 on page 365 here). An inexperienced swimmer would tend to believe that such cases are homicidal in nature. It is quite logical to conclude that the injuries were as a result of beating before death. However many of these injuries may be post mortem in nature, i.e. produced after death, by marine animals or by post mortem dragging of the body along the river bed by the currents of water.

Estimation of the duration of immersion is a problem which is answered relatively easily. If there is no wrinkling of the finger pads, the duration is less than few hours. Wrinkled fingers a condition also known by the catchy term washerwoman's hands (please reproduce fig. 16.3 on page 362 here) indicate a duration of about half a day. Wrinkled palms and feet suggest a duration of two and three days respectively. After about a week or more of submersion, the skin of the hands and feet comes off rather like a glove. This is known technically as degloving (Please reproduce fig 16.2 on page 362 here).

In the case of Gulabo I had to conduct the diatom test. Diatoms were present in the bone marrow, so I was almost sure that Gulabo was alive when she entered water. The feet had wrinkled appearance, but there was no degloving, so I guessed that she must be lying in water for a period of about 3 days. The body was recovered on 6th Feb. so I put the tentative date of drowning at 3rd Feb. This fit in with the statement of Birju too. There was no particular finding in favour of homicidal drowning, such as the presence of a narcotic drug in the stomach, the tying of the feet, or the presence of a disabling wound on the head. Gulabo was a woman of sturdy built, so it was rather difficult for someone to push her over. Most probably Gulabo and Birju had had some fight on 3rd Feb. Tired of the repeated fights, Gulabo had committed suicide by drowning. Birju did not know this, but since he cared two hoots for his wife,he returned in anger, genuinely thinking that she had eloped with her lover. He was perhaps guilty of causing mental harassment to Gulabo, but he was certainly not guilty of murder, and forensic science ensured justice to him.