When a backpacker drowns or a child's life is cut short in a swimming pool tragedy, it makes headlines.
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But a 10-year study revealed recently the deadliest and most common location for drowning is Australia's vast and often remote rivers.
Middle-aged men, many of whom are at least four times over the alcohol limit, continue to be over-represented among victims, said the study's lead author, Amy Peden of the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia.
The stats come as the search for a swimmer missing in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga resumed on Monday morning.
Of the 2892 people who drowned in Australia between 2002 and 2012, 770 jumped, dived or fell to their deaths in rivers, making it the leading location for unintentional drowning deaths.
Four out of every five victims were male, nearly all drowning victims lived with 100 kilometres of where they died, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and people living in remote locations were more likely to drown.
The percentage of drownings in rivers has remained relatively unchanged for the past 20 years except for a small drop in 2016.
Rivers accounted for 300 more deaths on average than the next bigger locations, including swimming pools and beaches, according to Ms Peden who reviewed reports by coroners.
About 372,000 people drown worldwide every year, with around 90 per cent of these deaths occurring in low and middle-income countries, the World Health Organisation says.
More than half of all drowning deaths are people under 25, males are twice as likely to drown as women and drowning kills more people worldwide than meningitis.
Internationally the real drowning toll may be much higher because many deaths in rivers may be attributed to other causes, such as natural disasters and transportation incidents, Ms Peden said.
The Australian research, supported by the Royal Life Saving Society and James Cook University, is believed to be the first countrywide study of drowning deaths in rivers anywhere in the world.
Ms Peden said it was frustrating to see the same sort of victims drown again and again in preventable tragedies.
They were "middle-aged males who had drunk an inordinate amount of alcohol. It's a typical picture you see time and time again.