This category includes accidental deaths due to drowning, whether that is in a bath, a garden pond, a lake or the sea.

See also Map 42 Suicide/undetermined by drowning and Map 24 Water transport accidents.

For males, rates are somewhat higher in the south west of England and south Wales, where coastal waters tend to be warmer thereby encouraging more people to swim.

Three quarters of deaths due to accidental drowning are of males. Men aged 15–44 account for over one third of all deaths by accidental drowning.

Very young children and older people are those most likely to drown in the bath. Many other people who die due to accidental drowning do so because they cannot swim. However, many swimmers drown, particularly in natural water features such as lakes and rivers, because they overestimate their swimming ability.

When a person is submerged in water their lungs fill up with water and so the amount of oxygen in the bloodstream rapidly falls and the person loses consciousness. It can sometimes be difficult to establish whether drowning was accidental or whether foul play or suicide was involved. A person, and particularly young children, can drown in a few centimetres of water.

Drowning victims include the poet Percy Shelley, and Mary Jo Kopechne, who died in a car accident involving US Senator Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick in 1969.