https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/mum-five-drowned-unimaginable-walsall-33972121
There are some odd things about this story.
Lots of stories lately of people drowning in canals but they seem to avoid the obvious question which is, why didn’t they just stand up? And the channel depth of canals includes the silt layer which covers the actual bottom, which can make canals a few inches shallower in places. There’s a myth that silt deepens canals, when it does the opposite.
Canals in the UK are still water, and do not have currents.
This story has been all over Facebook lately in the UK. Many people have commented asking why she didn’t just stand up, and that question got a lot of likes, but no actual answers.
I already answered this in the one about the two guys. Drowning is the cause of death, but usually something else causes them to keep their face submerged long enough for them to lose consciousness; either slipping in the mud and hitting their head, or getting disoriented in the water and panicking, not knowing which way is up, or intentionally keeping their head down, or having their head held down, etc.
So drowning is the cause of death, but many things could be the cause of drowning, most of them quite accidental.
It’s why you need a spotter for people who are swimming; people have a propensity for drowning in any body of water large enough to submerge their face… including bathtubs.
It can be hard to find one’s footing if the bottom of the canal is slippery mud. Quite a few fatalities in the UK are runners or walkers who slip on a river or canal bank and fall in. Falling into water that’s 14C or cooler can cause thermal shock that makes it harder to take action to save oneself.
Where I live (southwest UK), we have a small number of drownings in canals every year, along with a much greater number of river drownings, despite the river being slow and shallow most of the time in most parts. About half of known causes involve suicide. One-fourth involve people incapacitated by alcohol or other drugs.
https://issuu.com/rlssuk/docs/drowning_report_a4_web?fr=sOWRjNDY5MTI1MQ
(A neighbour I know from the pub slipped in and drowned recently. It happened in early March and thermal shock was a factor. He was a light drinker, I knew him mainly from quiz night.)