Recovered Bodies | Water

Introduction

For the pathologist providing a routine necropsy service to the local coroner, examination of bodies recovered from water can generate the most difficult of interpretational problems, and this is probably the prime context where appropriate historical and circumstantial evidence is vital to interpretation and overall conclusions,' although such collateral evidence should always be available before any coroner's necropsy is undertaken. It must be appreciated, at the outset, that not all persons whose bodies are recovered from water will have died from its inhalation, although they may show features reflecting immersion in water. Such bodies should therefore be particularly carefully examined, both externally and internally, to catalogue (and subsequently to explain satisfactorily) all injuries present, to determine whether death indeed followed immersion in the water, and to see whether any natural disease, such as ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and hypertension, may have contributed to, precipitated, or even caused death.