What happens to a corpse in the water?

[paintedveils]

Setting: Present day, southern California

Previous Search Attempts: This Slate article gives a pretty comprehensive answer to the behavior of dead bodies in the water, and includes links to more detailed sources. Super relevant to anyone with questions how to tell whether a body was dead before going into the water or not, how to tell if someone

Comments

[xtricks]

Yup. No reason not too. Though it might be less noticeable as stuff is washed away.

[trialia]

I would imagine so, unless the water pressure is sufficient to prevent it.

[archangelbeth]

If I recall correctly, this book right here is just excellent for questions like that.

(And since the reason for voiding is that the muscles relax due to death, I don't see how the voiding would fail to happen, no matter the cause of death or where the corpse is.)

[paintedveils]

Gotcha, thank you! And thanks for the book rec - that looks HUGELY relevant and helpful!

[vivian_shaw]

Yeah, it would. If the person had anything in his or her lower intestine and bladder, it'd come out once the muscles relaxed in death. (If they happened to be wearing something like a diver's drysuit, whoever discovered the body would have a real fun little surprise--although after several hours the skin at neck and wrists would have softened and might let water in and matter out.)

[paintedveils]

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer! That makes a lot of sense. Proceeding with story :P

[desdemonaspace]

If you want appearance, I saw the body of a jumper off the Golden Gate Bridge one Christmas, and I could not believe how blue the skin was. A real blue-gray, unlike anything you've ever seen on a live person. Also bloated, or else the person was overweight.