Drowning - is it a slow, agonizing death?

Factual Questions
1

Hello,

I was recently reading a fact-book for writers called “Cause of Death” in which the author - Keith D. Wilson, M.D. - describes death by drowning as a “slow, agonizing death”.

I was wondering just how slow and agonizing drowning - the ‘total immersion, head held under water’ kind, not the ‘frantically gasping at the surface for air’ kind - actually is. My misspent years lounging in front of the TV and dossing at my local flea-pit have lead me to believe that drowning is an unpleasant, uncomfortable, frightening, panic-filled but relatively brief and relatively painless way to die.

So just how long does it take for a person to expire from lack of oxygen? Does a person lose consciousness before death and if so how long before consciousness is lost? How painful is the experience would you guess? Is ‘drowning at the surface’ more prolonged and unpleasant than drowning while completely immersed in water? What are the effect if any of oxygen deprivation on the brain and senses - does a person feel light-headed, euphoric, filled with terror? Does water temperature effect the onset of death?

I’d be very grateful if the forum members could rescue me from my complete ignorance on this grisly subject. Many thanks for your help!

Best,

pasiphae

2

I don’t know. It’s been so long since I drowned to death, I forget whether it was slow or painful. :stuck_out_tongue:

3

Of course you would lose consciousness before you died, due to lack of oxygen to the brain.

Long ago I thought that if one were to commit suicide, voluntary drowning would be the best way to go: quick and painless. After all, swimming underwater is a pleasure. Every thing is so nice and peaceful. Just don’t bother to come up to breathe. You’d pass into unconsciousness and then death. However, after reflecting on this, it would be uncomfortable to keep holding your breath when all your bodily systems demand otherwise. You’d probably have to open your mouth to breathe, but you’d be breathing water, which is not conducive to life unless you have gills. More importantly, since that is your intent, you’d gag and be most uncomfortable. But it would only last for moments before you pass out.

Now, if this is done to you involuntarily, the discomfort would be increased exponentially.

4

Based on some other observations I think that passing out would be quick though not pleasant. Rob your lungs of oxygen and you’ll pass out very quickly as the oxygen poor blood is pumped to your brain. I saw this once when we tested CO[sub]2[/sub] inflated live vests. The vests are deflated with the tube provided for mouth inflation. A certain not so bright person decided to suck all the “air” out of the vest. A single lungful made him very nearly pass out. He said his vision actually went dark for a moment.

5

See The Perfect Storm

Not the movie… the BOOK.

There is a pretty good descriptoipn in there of what Death by Drowning is like… The author got his information from the story ofa doctor who got amazingly close to actually drowning, without dying (I believe he was in a shipwreck, himself), who then journaled nis experience as frankly as he could. Sorry I don’t have my copy handy, or I’d tell you where to look (and actually do a short quote or two).

6

Smart arse. :smiley:

7

Thanks lawoot! I’m going to check the book out tomorrow when I’m in town. :slight_smile:

Indicentally, I’ve seen the film itself about 20 or 30 times - I used work as a video store clerk (the foulest vermin of them all) and was made to endure compulsory looped showings of currently ‘hot’ films by the store owners. Imagine if you can, five 28" TV sets blasting out the theme tune to ‘Titanic’ over and over and over again…

8

Jeez, that would make me want to drown myself. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I know someone that drowned kayaking. He was panicky, until he breathed in. At that point he went limp and doesn’t remember anything, until his friend recesitated him.

10

Did he necessitate recistation? What’s more amazing is that he drowned yet was resuscitated.

11

This is what I remember from some of my scuba classes:

An average person has about two minutes of useful consciousness whithout breathing. Some people, through training and excellent health, may extend this time considerably. From 2-3 minutes you will probably be conscious but delusional. Around 3 minutes you pass out and around 5 minutes you die. You will start suffering brain damage around 2.5 - 3 minutes. Again…these are very loose averages. Some deep sea divers can hold their breath past 4 minutes and still swim around and be coherent but it takes excellent health and a lot of training.

How it feels like…not pleasant. Hold your breath right now for as long as you can. If you don’t cheat and don’t wimp out you’ll find just how unpleasant not breathing can be (don’t worry…if you somehow manage to hold your breath long enough to pass out you’ll simply start breathing again…just be careful you don’t fall when you pass out).

In the movie Red Planet the astronauts are facing imminent suffocation and the medic describes in medical detail what occurs during suffocation. After his diatribe that no one else understands another guy asks him if it’ll hurt and he responds, “A lot” (or something like that).

FWIW if you manage to hold your breath long enough the pain will actually cease and you will feel ok and possibly that you actually don’t need to breathe. At this point you are getting delusional and unconsciousness is at hand. As you go unconscious you will get tunnel vision and then you’re out.

Breathing in water is another issue entirely. A good deep breath of water will send you into shock and then unconsciousness very quickly. It’ll probably hurt but not for very long. Unless help is immediately available to resuscitate you this will finish you off in short order.

Personally I’ve had a few extended underwater breath holding experiences and my opinion is it would be one of the less pleasant ways to die (I imagine burning would be worse). It may all only be a few minutes but those can be LONG minutes when you’re in pain.

12

Another, possibly dramatized, depiction of a death by drowning was in a Discovery Channel special, World’s Most Dangerous Jobs : Alaskan Crab Fisherman.

It gave me the willies, that’s for sure.

13

Although it does not perfectly match your question, Cecil’s comments on drowning can be found here.

Personally, I always thought drowning would be one of the worst ways to go. The thought of knowing your fate for a good period of time before it actually occurs would be horrifying to me. Give me a shotgun blast to the head any day.

14

Oh, I really don’t want to know how it is. This is one time I’d rather be “ignorant”. (Ignorance is bliss!!!) My father drowned in 1966, at the ripe old age of 36. I would love to think he never felt a thing…and never knew he was dying.
I know this is totally off topic. But I’m really hoping drowning isn’t as bad as what is is professed to be. I always “heard” before that it is the same as sleeping…and I really would like to continue to think that. I know in my logical mind that isn’t true. But I still want to believe my young father didn’t suffer.

Sorry…just the way I feel about it…

15

Thank you. This is something I’ve wondered about for many years. A grade school friend died at the age of 20 in 1956. He had joined the Navy, was deep-sea diving. “Somebody” had screwed the helmet on improperly.

I’d always imagined that he had panicked and didn’t tug on his life-line.

16

I came close to drowning once when stuck under a waterfall while kayaking. It was not painful. It was slow, but since my only hope was for someone to paddle out and retrieve me, I did not really care about it taking so long. The first challenge was was trying to relax and not expend energy. The second challenge was trying not to breathe in. The third challenge was to try to feel for a tow line. Eventually I breathed in just as I was passing out – the breathing was not voluntary at all. I found that moment incredibly frustrating. Fortunately, I had snagged a tow line prior to this and was pulled out immediately following the ingestion, so no AR was required despite my being passed out. My paddling partner was a paramedic and river guide, so he had me out and coughing up water extremely quickly. I don’t have a time on the process, but I estimate it took about two to three minutes from imersion to rescue. There were no long terms effects (I took antibiotics to ward off lung infection) other than a lasting aversion to playing at the base of waterfalls.

17

As a kid I came very close to drowning, I had already passed out and had to resuscitated. I remember being very panicky but as soon as I took that first inhalation of water I blacked out. It really wasn’t all that bad. It certainly beats being flayed alive, broken on the rack or slow roasted over a pit.

18

Same thing happened to me. Looking back at some of the close calls I had, it’s a wonder I’m here, mobile and thinking (or so I like to believe).

In this case, I was young (about 5 or 6) and we had gone to the lake for the day. White sandy semi-circular beach, lotsa kids, hot day, etc.

I was out in the water when ahead of me were some kids in a rubber raft. Wow, that looks neat. Maybe I can hang on and ride with them. Maybe climb in.

I remember getting out into deeper water, reaching for the side of the boat, just out of reach. Step, bounce, reach, miss, water up to my chin. Step, bounce, reach, miss, water up over my ears. Step, no bounce, water over my head.

I didn’t know how to swim.

That was it. I woke up on the beach, coughing up water and being very, very scared.

My mother, bless her soul, had assigned my brother to keep an eye on me. He saved my ass.

To this day, I can’t remember a thing from it. No fear, no pain. Just blacking out. While I suspect it would be different if I tried a Virginia Woolf (sticking rocks in my pocket and jumping into the river), it would be because the anticipation and fear would be far more agonizing than the act itself.

Needless to say, my parents signed me up for swim lessons at the Y soon as we got back.

As a faithful reader of Patrick O’Brian’s novels, he has something to say about learning to swim. Most sailors were not in favor of it. They’d rather drown right off rather than hang about in the water, when they knew they were going to drown anyway. Sorta makes sense.

19

Oh, I can. I went to visit my girlfriend for my week-long spring break one year, and she and her roommate were in this phase where they thought it was a good idea to set the CD player to auto-repeat the theme from Titanic about 25 times in a row for bedtime music. Also, there was a gigantic poster of Leonardo DiCrapio on the ceiling above her bed. And the nearest boy’s restroom was 2 floors down.

20

I’ve held my breath for over 3 3/4 minutes before. It didn’t take much training at all to be able to do so - when I first became interested in timing how long I could hold my breath I could do a minute easy. Two minutes was pretty uncomfortable but it didn’t take me long before I could do that consistently. When I’ve held my breath longer I did not experience any delusional thinking or loss of mental function, but maybe because I knew I could come up for air whenever it got to be too much, and I worked very hard on relaxing myself to reduce oxygen use (I’d also hyperventilate about 30 seconds before going under).

I think those times you’ve listed are a bit off. Now, if someone was underwater and not used to holding their breath they might inhale water after a couple of minutes, which of course would end things pretty quick, but I don’t think that oxygen deprivation alone would kill them if they weren’t allowed to inhale water. With dilligent training it seems going 5 minutes without breath is well within normal human capabilities (magicians and skin divers for sponges and pearls do that a lot) and I don’t think it’s a case of them conditioning their brain to use less oxygen, I think they’ve just conditioned themselves to override their breathing reflex. The world record for voluntary holding your breath is over 13 minutes, and people have gone without breathing for far longer involuntarily.