What does it feel like to drown?

The first stage of drowning usually involves feelings of extreme panic as the person fights to survive. This struggling lets the oxygen in the body run out fast.

After a person loses his ability to hold his breath, he will be forced to inhale water.

As a person inhales water, he tries to cough or swallow the water, which leads to involuntarily swallowing more water.

When the person inhales involuntarily, after failing to hold his breath, water enters the stomach. In some cases, the body blocks the path to the lungs to prevent water from entering.

In some cases, water enters the lungs and fills them as the body fails to prevent water from entering inside it.

Some survivors have described the feeling of drowning as tearing and burning in the lungs. Those feelings are followed by feelings of calmness and tranquillity. This feeling could be the result of water entering the lungs. (See How does burning to death feel like?)

Water filling the stomach makes the body heavy, and so it forces it to sink deeper.

Under the effect of lack of oxygen, a person’s heart might stop.

As oxygen runs out and carbon dioxide accumulates in the body, loss of consciousnesses happens. This can take a different amount of time from a person to another. Death later happens after a person is unconscious. (See Study: Consciousness after clinical death)

Some survivors of drowning reported feeling nothing at all and just waking up in the hospital. They said it was similar to some blackout.

As a result of the extreme panic, some people go unconscious very fast and feel nothing while drowning.