Dead weight
Question: My school class wants to know why corpses sunk in water eventually
float to the surface.
Answer: Part of my work involves recovering bodies from the River Clyde and
surrounding waterways. Over the years, I have recovered around a thousand bodies
that have spent between a few days and two years in the water.
When a person drowns, water takes the place of air in the lungs. The body
becomes heavier and sinks. It stays there until enough gas builds up inside the
body from bacterial decomposition to make it buoyant and free it from the
suction…
