The disappearance of Nicola Bulley

Without getting too morbid
Even knowing the water in the lungs would be interesting.
If its fresh then chances are she did go in where her phone was.
If its salt then chances are something triggered her to walk off and go downstream. Oddly if the maps are correct the last place she was seen was I believe upstream from the bench however.
If the lungs were not filled with water then :eek:
 
Isn't it strange she had to be identified by her dental records? One would have thought that even after 3 weeks the body would be well preserved in freezing cold water
 
tom_e said:
You can drown without water entering your lungs.
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You can kind of, but its not very likely in these circumstances is it. If shes fallen into a steam shes likely inhaled water, even if not absolute lungfuls.
Really its splitting hairs since drowning (submersion and inhalation of water) is water entering the lungs where as asphyxiation is a lack of oxygen which could be via drowning, or something else preventing oxygen getting to the lungs.
Arguably you havent drowned in say 2 inches of water, you have suffered from asphyxiation caused by water, but not by drowning.
 
tom_e said:
You can drown without water entering your lungs.
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Can you though ?

It's possible she had a heart attack and fell in the water, so she was technically dead before she got the chance to drown but I don't think it's possible for a human to be submerged underwater indefinitely while alive and not succumb to the basic uncontrollable instinct to inhale when you reach such low levels of oxygen as being underwater entails
 
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rumple9 said:
Isn't it strange she had to be identified by her dental records? One would have thought that even after 3 weeks the body would be well preserved in freezing cold water
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I don't think you realise what water does to a human corpse, she would have looked absolutely horrific, bloated, green then decomposition. 3 weeks is a long time.
 
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So apparently Lancashire Police were sent to her house 17 days before she died for a welfare check. Looking like there is some back story here that hasn't come out yet.

Poor woman, I really feel for her kids.

:(
 
rumple9 said:
Isn't it strange she had to be identified by her dental records? One would have thought that even after 3 weeks the body would be well preserved in freezing cold water
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If you're in water for any length of time you're not really going to get a proper ID from a visual check (cold water slows decomp not stops it - think food in fridge not deep freezer, and doesn't affect what else can happen), and it would very cruel to ask the family to do one if you've got any other option, fingerprints are out as well..
DNA checks take time, but a dental records check can be done extremely quickly and be pretty much as good as any other form of ID check on a body as it's exceptionally unlikely outside of a John LeCarre novel that a body pulled from the water is going to have an identical set of dental work to the missing person unless they are indeed that person.

IIRC back before DNA it wasn't uncommon for body pulled from the water to have to be ID'd via what was with the body, so jewellery, papers, or clothes that the person was known to have been wearing.

I don't doubt they'll do DNA as well to be absolutely certain and tick that box off the list.


Basically, as has been said a lot in this thread from the start, there is very little suspicious about it.
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
You can kind of, but its not very likely in these circumstances is it. If shes fallen into a steam shes likely inhaled water, even if not absolute lungfuls.
Really its splitting hairs since drowning (submersion and inhalation of water) is water entering the lungs where as asphyxiation is a lack of oxygen which could be via drowning, or something else preventing oxygen getting to the lungs.
Arguably you havent drowned in say 2 inches of water, you have suffered from asphyxiation caused by water, but not by drowning.
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This might sound like absolute balls but when I worked at Creda a warehouse worker was eventually found outside in a puddle of water and the 'factory fact' was he had drowned.
I never heard the full story but he could have had a heart attack and like you say died of asphyxiation in the water and not drowned.
We always questioned at the time how he had got enough water in him to drown but your explanation sounds bob on.
 
Moley said:
So apparently Lancashire Police were sent to her house 17 days before she died for a welfare check. Looking like there is some back story here that hasn't come out yet.

Poor woman, I really feel for her kids.

:(
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This isn't uncommon. Lots of shouting matches nowadays can end up in welfare checks.
 
I've been watching this closely and not commented. It was genuinely clear from the beginning that "an accident" had occurred, rather than foul play. The police were confident of this for numerous reasons, none of which they could really share. But, in part, because it doesn't sound very good on TV saying, "we'll just have to wait and let the river do it's thing. She'll surface eventually".

Now, for anyone used to seeing a body exposed to water for even 48 hours would know how utterly horrific it is. Fully bloated, capillaries bursting through the skin with what looks like blue blood, not pretty. Now add 3 weeks to that, and you've got a real sight on your hands.

The family were advised that they wouldn't want to see Nichola in this state (to identify her) and rightly chose not to. But still, it was interesting to me that they had to use dental records to make a positive ID. Speculatively, I suspect she killed herself either by drowning, which is incredibly hard to do, or by another means, and then threw, or fell, into the water. Only an autopsy will tell, and we may not ever know the outcome of that, publicly.

A welfare visit, a woman struggling with life, hidden burdens, lots of unanswered questions.
 
Django x2 said:
Now, for anyone used to seeing a body exposed to water for even 48 hours would know how utterly horrific it is. Fully bloated, capillaries bursting through the skin with what looks like blue blood, not pretty. Now add 3 weeks to that, and you've got a real sight on your hands.
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Not to mention the fauna nibbling away at the body too, especially the extremities.
 
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