List of drowning victims

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]
  • 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
  • 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

  • Consort Zhen (born 1876), consort of Guangxu Emperor, thrown into a well by Empress Dowager Cixi,August 15, 1900.
  • Isadore Rush (born ?), American actress. Drowned off the beach at San Diego, Hotel Del Coronado November 1904.
  • Grace Brown (born 1886), American garment industry worker. Drowned in New York's Big Moose Lake on June 11, 1906, after she fell out of a boat being rowed by her boyfriend, Chester Gillette, nephew of her employer. Witnesses said Gillette had struck her on the head with a tennis racket before she went into the water; he claimed she had jumped out. After a murder trial that drew national attention, Gillette was convicted and sentenced to death; he was executed two years later. The case inspired Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy.
  • Ernst Schultz (born 1879), Danish sprinter. Drowned while swimming in Roskilde Fjord, 20 June 1906.

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.[19]
  • Michel Tamarati (born 1858), a Georgian Catholic priest and historian, died while trying to rescue a drowning man in stormy sea near Santa Marinella, Italy, on September 16, 1911.[20]
  • John Jacob Astor IV (born 1864), drowned in the Titanic disaster 1912.[21]
  • Benjamin Guggenheim (born 1865), drowned in the Titanic disaster 1912.[22]
  • Isidor Straus and wife Ida Straus, drowned in the Titanic disaster.[23]
  • 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 by drowning means adding to a legend.[24]
  • 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.[25]
  • 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.[26]
  • 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.[27]
  • 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.[28]

1930s

1940s

1950s

  • Arky Vaughan (born 1912), baseball Hall of Famer, drowned after falling from his fishing boat on 30 August 1952.[39]
  • 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.[40]

1960s

1970s

1980s

  • 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.[53]
  • 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.[54]
  • Dennis Wilson (born 1944), one of the members of the Beach Boys, drowned in 1983 at Marina del Rey, California, while diving after drinking.[55]
  • 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.[56]
  • 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.
  • Fernando Pereira Dutch photographer drowned when French agents sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, July 10, 1985.[57]
  • Carol Wayne, American actress who drowned under mysterious circumstances in Manzanillo, Mexico in 1985.[58]
  • Jerry Anderson, former NFL football player who drowned while saving a boy who had fallen into a flooded creek in 1989.[59]

1990s

  • Jim Hodder, (born 1947), American drummer who drowned in his pool in 1990.[42]
  • Robert Maxwell, newspaper magnate, disappeared from his yacht under mysterious circumstances in 1991, body later recovered off the coast of Tenerife.[60]
  • Will Sinnott, bass player and keyboardist for The Shamen, who drowned while swimming in the Canary Islands in 1991.
  • Kiyoshi Nishimura, Japanese film maker, committed suicide on November 17, 1993.
  • Tom Mees, longtime sportscaster for ESPN, drowned while trying to rescue his 4-year-old daughter in a neighbor's swimming pool, in 1996. The daughter survived.[61]
  • David Chan Yuk-cheung (Chinese: 陈毓祥, born 1950), a leader of Baodiao movement in Hong Kong, drowned in the sea during a protest in 1996.
  • Jeff Buckley (born 1966), singer-songwriter, drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis, Tennessee in 1997.[62]
  • Nerine Kidd Shatner (Born July 13, 1959) actress/model and the third wife of William Shatner drowned while swimming alone in the couple's pool.[63]

21st century

2000s

  • Linda Andersen (born 1959), forcibly drowned in her bathtub by her two daughters in Mississauga, Ontario, on January 18, 2003.[64]
  • Riley Fox (born 2001), American child, was found drowned in a creek near Wilmington, Illinois on June 6, 2004, shortly after she had been reported missing. Her father was initially suspected of killing her and spent eight months in jail before evidence cleared him and charges were dropped; he would later successfully sue the local sheriff's office for violations of his civil rights. A paroled convict living nearby was later convicted after his own confession and sentenced to life without parole.[65]
  • Spalding Gray (born 1941), monologuist and actor (Swimming to Cambodia), drowned in a suspected suicide in New York City's East River in 2004.[66]
  • Geetha Angara (born 1961), drowned in a water tank at a treatment plant where she worked as a chemist in Totowa, New Jersey, on February 8, 2005. Although the possibility has been raised that the drowning was accidental, police are investigating the death as a homicide, either by intent or negligence, but as of 2020 no suspects have been identified.[67]
  • Tom Rogers (born 1918), creator of Charlie the Tuna for StarKist, drowned in his son's swimming pool while swimming alone, in Charlottesville, VA on June 24, 2005. He was 87 years old.[68]
  • Édouard Michelin (born 1963), French businessman, drowned while fishing near the island of Sein in northwest France, in 2006.[69]
  • Barbara Precht, pulled from the Ohio River on 29 November 2006. Her body was not identified until November 2014. She died from drowning due to unknown circumstances.[70]
  • Rafael Donato (born 1938), distinguished Filipino educator and university president, accidentally drowned off the coast of Morong, Bataan, in the Philippines in 2006.[71]
  • Marquise Hill (born 1982), Defensive End for the New England Patriots, accidentally drowned in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans after a jet ski accident on 27 May 2007.[72]
  • Jeremy Blake (born 1971), American digital artist and painter, drowned on or around July 17, 2007 in the Atlantic Ocean in an apparent suicide (although some suspect he was murdered by Scientologists) after being reported missing off Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York. His body was found in the water off Sea Girt, New Jersey on July 22, 2007.[73]
  • Seth Tobias (born 1963), American hedge fund manager, drowned on September 4, 2007 while under the influence of drugs and alcohol in his swimming pool in Jupiter, Florida
  • Kari Blackburn (born 1954), BBC World Service executive, drowned (suicide) at sea at Felixstowe, Suffolk, England in 2007.[74]
  • Katoucha Niane (born 1960), French model, drowned in the Seine in 2008.[75]
  • Pit Martin (born 1943), Canadian ice hockey player, drowned after his snowmobile fell through thin ice in Quebec in 2008.[76]
  • Ophélie Bretnacher, a French student, drowned in the Danube between December 2008 and February 2009.[77]

2010s

  • Amelia-Jane Milton, drowned in dam at Tallegalla on February 19, 2010.
  • 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.[78]
  • Marie-France Pisier, French actress, found dead in her swimming pool April 2011.[79]
  • 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.[80]
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 a drowning dog.[81]
  • 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.[82]
  • Pascale Gaedke, German Football Goalkeeper, drowned in a covered pool at a family celebration in Gerichshain on December 22, 2019.

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