List of drowning victims

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of drowning victims in chronological order. The reasons for drowning are diverse and range from suicide, to accidents or murders.

Antiquity

  • Tiberinus Silvius, ninth Latin king of Alba Longa, drowned in the Tiber, which was named after him.[1]
  • Hippasus of Metapontum, a student of the mathematician Pythagoras, who, by some accounts, was drowned by his fellow Pythagoreans for the imprudence of discovering irrational numbers.[2]
  • Qu Yuan of China in 278 BC. Committed ritual suicide as a form of protest against the corruption of the era, a sacrifice still commemorated today during the Duan Wu or Dragon Boat Festival.[3]
  • Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII of Egypt, drowned in the Nile in 47 BC.[4]
  • Antinous (born circa 111), lover of Roman Emperor Hadrian, drowned in the Nile in 130; the grieving emperor commissioned hundreds of statues of the youth and spread them around the Empire.[5]
  • Cao E, a Han dynasty girl venerated for her filial piety. In 143, Cao Xu accidentally fell into the Shun River. in an act of filial piety, she decided to find her father in the river. After five days, she and her father were both found dead in the river from drowning. Eight years later, a temple was built in Shangyu dedicated to the memory of Cao E and her sacrifice for filial piety. The Shun River was renamed Cao'e River in her honor.
  • Maxentius, Roman Emperor, drowned in the Tiber during the chaos of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on October 28, 312.[6]
  • Yuan Zhao, briefly an emperor of the Northern Wei, thrown together with Empress Dowager Hu into the Yellow River to drown
  • Shabib ibn Yazid al-Shaybani, (697/98), a rebel in Umayyad Caliphate, was defeated by Umayyad Army. As he attempted to escape his Syrian pursuers (the Umayyad army), he drowned in the Dujayl Canal while trying to cross it. This occurred either in early 697 or in 697/98.
  • Li Bai, Chinese poet, in 762. It is, however, suggested that he died of excessive drinking or mercury poisoning.[7]

Middle Ages

Renaissance

18th century

19th century

Twentieth century

1900s

1910s

  • Sir W. S. Gilbert (b. 1836), British humorist, librettist of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, drowned on 29 May 1911 while going to the rescue of two other swimmers in the lake at his home. He may have died from a heart attack rather than by drowning.[21]
  • Michel Tamarati (born 1858), a Georgian Catholic priest and historian, died while trying to rescue a drowning man in a stormy sea near Santa Marinella, Italy, on September 16, 1911.[22]
  • John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864) drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912.[23]
  • Benjamin Guggenheim (born 1865) drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912.[24]
  • Isidor Straus and wife Ida Straus, drowned in the Titanic disaster.[25]
  • Grigori Rasputin (died 1916), Russian mystic and Imperial adviser. The aristocratic faction tried to kill him using several methods, including, after poison, several gunshots; this is believed to be the main cause of his death, but after his body was thrown in the Neva River (and later recovered), many tend to believe that drowning was the final cause of his death. For others, attributing death to drowning means adding to a legend.[26]
  • Enrique Granados drowned after jumping out of a lifeboat to rescue his wife following the torpedoing of their ship by the German navy during World War I in 1916.[27]
  • Tom Thomson, Canadian painter who died in a canoeing accident in Algonquin Provincial Park in 1917.

1920s

  • William Wilton (born 1865), Scottish football manager (Rangers F.C.), drowned in a boating accident at Gourock, Scotland in 1920.[28]
  • Little Lord Fauntleroy (murder victim), an unidentified child found in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on March 8, 1921. He had been hit in the head with a blunt instrument and was thrown into a quarry, which resulted in his death.[29]
  • Michael Llewelyn Davies (born 1900) and his friend Rupert Buxton drowned together in a pool of water downstream of a weir near Sandford Lock on the River Thames, a few miles from Oxford on May 21, 1921. The location has been the site of many drownings.
  • Pavel Urysohn (born 1898), Russian mathematician and topologist, drowned on 17 August 1924 while on holiday in France.[30]
  • Sacadura Cabral died on 15 November 1924 after his airplane disappeared over the English Channel, along with his co-pilot Mechanical Corporal José Correia. As no bodies were found, it is not known whether they actually drowned.[31]
  • Ida Vihuri (born 1882), Finnish politician, died on 7 September 1929 in the shipwreck of SS Kuru.[32]

1930s

1940s

1950s

  • Arky Vaughan (born 1912), baseball Hall of Famer, drowned after falling from his fishing boat on 30 August 1952.[44]
  • Susan Martin (1945–1958) and Virginia Martin (1947–1958) died by drowning in the Columbia River in unexplained circumstances when they, along with their mother, father, and older sister, disappeared in December 1958.[45]

1960s

1970s

1980s

  • John Crabbe Cunningham (born 1927), Scottish climber, mountain instructor and member of the Creag Dhu mountaineering club, drowned at South Stack, Anglesey, Wales in January 1980, when attempting to rescue a female pupil who fell into the sea while Coasteering[62]
  • Natalie Wood (born 1938), actress, drowned in a yachting accident in 1981 off of Santa Catalina Island; the accident raised several suspicions and murder was considered and the case was reopened in 2011 and is now categorized as suspicious with husband Robert Wagner named as a person of interest.[63]
  • Joe Delaney (born 1958), Running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, accidentally drowned in 1983 while trying to save three children who were screaming for help.[64]
  • Dennis Wilson (born 1944), one of the members of the Beach Boys, drowned in 1983 at Marina del Rey, California, while diving after drinking.[65]
  • Jessica Savitch (born 1947), NBC and PBS news broadcaster and reporter, drowned in 1983 when the car in which she was riding went off the road during a heavy rainstorm into a canal, sank upside down in mud and filled with water.[66]
  • Grégory Villemin (born 1980), French child, was found drowned, bound and gagged in France's Vologne River 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from his home in Lépanges-sur-Vologne on October 16, 1984. It was later found that the water in his lungs did not match the river, suggesting he had been killed elsewhere. The ensuing homicide investigation and trials captivated the country; no one has been convicted in the case.
  • Hans Neij (born 1921), a Swedish Air Force major general serving as defence attaché in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa drowned during a holiday stay at Fort Walton Beach, Florida on 24 April 1985.[67]
  • Fernando Pereira, Dutch photographer drowned when French agents sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, July 10, 1985.[68]
  • Carol Wayne, American actress who drowned under mysterious circumstances in Manzanillo, Mexico in 1985.[69]
  • Uwe Barschel, German politician who was found dead under mysterious circumstances on 11 October 1987 when his clothed body was discovered in a full bathtub at Hotel Beau-Rivage in Geneva.[70]
  • Jerry Anderson, former NFL football player who drowned while saving a boy who had fallen into a flooded creek in 1989.[71]

1990s

21st century

2000s

2010s

  • Dawn Brancheau, SeaWorld trainer, killed during a killer whale show and suffered a blunt trauma on February 24, 2010.
  • Toshiharu Ikeda, Japanese film director and screenwriter, committed suicide in December 2010.[91]
  • Marie-France Pisier, French actress, found dead in her swimming pool April 2011.[92]
  • Nandana, the 8-year-old daughter of Indian singer K. S. Chithra, drowned after falling into a swimming pool in Dubai, April 2011.
  • Whitney Houston, American singer, found dead in her bathtub following a barbiturate overdose, February 2012.
  • Rodney King, American construction worker, victim of police brutality, found dead in his swimming pool with alcohol, marijuana and cocaine in his system, June 2012.
  • Elisa Lam (born 1991), Canadian tourist in Los Angeles, found in the water tank atop the hotel where she was staying on February 19, 2013.[93]
  • David Bird, American journalist, found in a river near his home 14 months after he was last seen alive in early 2014.
  • Alan Kurdi (born 2012), Syrian child, drowned in the Mediterranean off the Turkish coast on September 2, 2015, while his family was trying to enter Greece and seek refugee status from their country's civil war. A photograph of Kurdi's body lying lifeless on the shore sparked global outrage over the plight of Syrian refugees.
  • Santiago Maldonado, drowned while trying to cross río Chubut while escaping from the federal law enforcement.
  • Sally Brampton, English journalist, writer and magazine editor, committed suicide by walking into the sea at St Leonards on 10 May 2016.
  • Maria Ladenburger, died of drowning in the German river Dreisam on October, 16th 2016 after being sexually assaulted.
  • Vladimir Cvijan, died of drowning in the Danube in Belgrade, Serbia on 5 January 2018. His death was kept hidden from the public for 3 years, until it was revealed in March 2021.
  • Dolores O’Riordan, Irish musician and vocalist for the Cranberries died of drowning caused by alcohol poisoning in her bathtub at the London Hilton on Park Lane hotel on 15 January 2018.
  • Sridevi, veteran Indian actress, died aged 54 on 24 February 2018 after drowning in the bathtub of her room in a hotel in Dubai, where she had gone to attend a marriage. Initially, the cause of her death was known as a heart attack, but it was later confirmed to be drowning. It is believed that she was under the influence of alcohol when she died.
  • Eric Geboers, age 55, a 5-time Belgian world champion motocross racer, died on 6 May 2018, while trying to save his drowning dog.[94]
  • Ray Emery, Canadian ice hockey goaltender, drowned in Hamilton Harbour on July 15, 2018.
  • Florijana Ismaili, Swiss Footballer, drowned in Lake Como in July 2019.
  • Chan Yin-lam (born 2004), drowned in the ocean off Hong Kong September 19, 2019. Her death was ruled a suicide; conspiracy theories circulated that she had actually been killed by the police over her participation in the ongoing protests.[95]

2020s

  • On May 17, 2020, Shad Gaspard and his son were among a group of swimmers caught in a strong rip current in the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles. Gaspard told the lifeguards to save his son before saving himself but disappeared underwater soon after. His son was safely rescued.
  • On 8 July 2020, Alex Pullin (also known as 'Chumpy'), an Australian Olympic snowboarder, drowned after a spearfishing accident at Palm Beach, Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.[96]
  • Also on 8 July 2020, actress and singer Naya Rivera drowned in Lake Piru, Ventura County, California, after saving her son. After being declared a missing person and a subsequent search and rescue mission, her body was found on 13 July 2020.
  • On 26 November 2021, the Norwegian YouTuber Apetor drowned at Jakobs dam, a lake west of Kongsberg, Norway. He was rescued by divers and flown by air ambulance to Ullevål University Hospital in Oslo, though he was unable to be resuscitated and died on the 27th.[97]
  • On November 5, 2022, American singer Aaron Carter drowned in a bathtub at his California home after inhaling difluoroethane and taking alprazolam.[98]
  • On October 28, 2023, American actor Matthew Perry died of an apparent drowning in his hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home at the age of 54.

See also

References

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