A man believed to be in his 50s has drowned in a river at Assin Akrofuom in the Assin South District of the Central region.
The lifeless body was found in the River Dwawere on Wednesday, December 14, 2022.
The deceased, Eric Tetteh, was said to have gone swimming with his friend when the unfortunate incident occurred.
The friend was nowhere to be found after the father of four drowned.
The police at Assin Anyinabrim, led by the Station Officer, Inspector Karim Wayo, went to the river and retrieved the body, which has since been deposited at St. Francis Xavier Hospital Mortuary.
Police have commenced an investigation into the incident.
Drowning trends
In April 2022, three boys, aged between six and nine, drowned in a pit at Tuba in the Ga South Municipality in the Greater Accra Region.
The three are Isaac Amoah, 8, and siblings: Elisha Kakra Adu-Noah, 9, and Samuel Tawiah Adjei-Mensah, 6.
A report by Graphic said the children had left home to play around the area of the incident and decided to wash down in a pit created by rainwater.
Unknown to the children, a mudslide had created the pit, making the base muddy, a development that made it difficult for them to swim out of the stagnant water in the pit.
The government described it as a national disaster after the death of 10 students who drowned in the Oti River at Saboba in the Northern Region.
Some students of the Saint Charles Lwanga Junior High School (JHS) were travelling on the river when their boat capsized in November 2021.
The victims were among 31 students who had allegedly gone to work on their headmaster’s farm earlier in the day and were returning home in batches when the disaster struck.
In October 2021, at least four other people died when their boat capsized on the River Offin in the Ashanti Region.
Their bodies were pulled from the river after nearly three days of searching for those missing.
Again, in March 2021, about 13 teenagers drowned at the Apam Beach in the Central Region.
According to a police report, while the children were swimming, a high tide swallowed them up.
The timely intervention of a Good Samaritan saved the lives of two of them as they were rescued and sent to the St. Luke Hospital to be attended to.
But the rest could not make it.
Drowning trends
Hundreds of deaths are recorded yearly due to drowning.
According to the latest WHO data published in 2020, Drownings Deaths in Ghana reached 740 or 0.42% of total deaths.
At the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, the biggest referral hospital in the Central Region, the leading cause of injury deaths were road traffic injuries (42.9%) and drowning (30%), according to research spearheaded by a Senior lecturer of surgery at the University of Cape Coast Dr Martin T. Morna.
The researchers used data from January 2012 to December 2018.
In the Greater Accra Region, the Ghana Police Hospital have issued cautions to the public to be safety conscious after receiving bodies of people who drowned at beaches close to the health facility.
The Pathology Department of the hospital recorded 68 persons drowning in 2017, with eight being females.
A total of 48 drowning cases had been recorded, 10 of them being females, as of November 2018.