Sudden Death due to Swimming in Elderly Women

Abstract

The aim was to analyze the rate of sudden death in elderly Croatian women in comparison to elderly Croatian men, who died suddenly due to swimming. In a period from 2002 to 2011 one elderly Croatian woman and five elderly men died suddenly during swimming. In the same time, the same number of elderly foreigners died due to swimming at the Croatian Adriatic coast. One Croatian woman aged 66, who suffered of arterial hypertension with left ventricular hypertrophy of 15 mm, diabetes mellitus and alcoholic liver cirrhosis, drowned in the sea due to swimming. She was intoxicated with alcohol acutely and had alcohol level in urine of 3.03%. One foreign woman, aged 82, who suffered coronary heart disease with left ventricular scar after myocardial infarction, arterial hypertension with excessive left ventricular hypertrophy of 22 mm and nephroangiosclerosis, suddenly collapsed and died during swimming. The death rate in elderly Croatian women due to swimming reached 0.25, and the death rate in men is eight times higher: 1.97 (p=0.0701), but the difference is not significant probably because of a small observational number.