Summer drownings figures reveal 90 deaths across Australia

The Royal Life Saving Society - Australia has today revealed that one person drowned each day during the peak holiday season with a surge of deaths during the heatwave in February.

Released today, the Royal Life Saving Summer Drowning Toll also revealed a tragic Christmas - New Year holiday week, with 10% of all drowning deaths during the period being rescues gone wrong.

Last year flood-related drowning deaths caused a spike in deaths in February, but this year’s February death toll was even higher - with 31 deaths - despite there not being large-scale flooding in urban areas in 2023.

In total, 90 people lost their lives in Australian waterways and swimming pools between 1st December 2022 and 28th February 2023.

Concerned by the trend, Royal Life Saving Society - Australia Chief Executive, Justin Scarr stated “last year was the worst year on record for summer drowning and we had hoped there would be a significant drop given there was fewer intense flood events this year, but drowning numbers are still too high.

“It’s supposed to be the happiest time of year, but between Christmas Day and January 2, when people gathered together across Australia 22 people drowned. That’s 22 families, friends and communities whose summer became a period of mourning.

“The heatwave in February also caused a spike in drowning, with 17% of all drowning deaths over summer attributable to that six-day period.

“So many communities were affected by drowning this year, with significant increases in drowning in all states except for Queensland and Tasmania.

“Royal Life Saving continues to promote the need for local drowning prevention and water safety plans, targeting known drowning blackspots.

“We know that this is the tip of the iceberg. Many more non-fatal drowning incidents are likely to have occurred that aren’t recorded in publicly accessible data and so remain invisible.

“We need to get more people in our community getting back into their local pools brushing up on their skills, doing their Bronze Medallion if they’re planning to be at unpatrolled locations including rivers and lakes, and getting their children into learn to swim classes.”

Royal Life Saving Summer Drowning Toll
Royal Life Saving’s Summer Drowning Toll is updated regularly over the summer and includes an analysis of fatal drowning, including a comparison of ‘this time’ last summer, as well as location and activity information. 

These figure are interim numbers, based on what it reported in the media and that around 30% of all drowning deaths go unreported, especially those that occur in the home environment and among older people.

Numbers will change with coronial investigations and the official number of summer drowning deaths will be reported in the 2023 National Drowning Report released in September.

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