Report on the Accumulated Degree Days and Post Mortem Submersion Interval for an Infant Drowning Accident

A limited number of forensic studies report on the Post Mortem Submersion Interval (PMSI) and the related Accumulated Degree Days (ADD) necessary for a body to resurface after drowning. Some of these studies result from experiments using animal carcasses. Death by drowning represents the only source of PMSI and ADD information for human corpses. Since there are ethical and legal constraints to experiments with human corpses, gathering this information relies on reports of drowning accidents. This case study focuses on estimated ADD and PMSI for a 3-year old drowning victim. The PMSI was 5.6 days, during which the water temperature varied between 15.3 °C and 15.6 °C. Calculated interval for the ADD range was between 76 °C and 92 °C. Insignificant body drift occurred despite the highly hydrodynamic regime of the accident area. The findings here reported were compared with previous published data for similar cases, showing similar drift patterns and PMSI but a lower ADD threshold for the body to regain floatability.