The petrous section of the temporal bone was studied in a hundred autopsies of Costa Rican patients (September 1992-february 1993). The frequency of victims of drowing was associated with demographically dominant groups and with the provinces with more touristic activity in beaches. The hemorrhage of the petrous section of the temporal bone is not a patognomonic sympton of drowing because it is also associated with other causes of death. For example, the pressure gradient between the midle ear and the evironment during submersion, is neither the only nor the main cause for it. Hypoxia is a common element in all the death causes considered in this study, and it could be the origin of damage to the vascular endothelium which was followed by hemorrhage in the middle ear.

Asfixia; hemorragia; hueso temporal; diagnóstico