Re Drowning

Is the person dead or just in shock?

I would assume it's because of decompression. When a body sinks, gas is released into our body to equalize the pressure. If a person sinks to the bottom of a lake and drowns, then floats back up, they'll ascend too fast for their now dead body to equalize the pressure and everything just kinda goes bloated, so the tongue gets real big, kinda like an erection I think, and sticks out of the mouth. This is, of course, guesswork.

Is the person drowning or has the person drowned?

If someone is a victim of drowning, I would presume them to be dead, and also that they were once in a state of drowning.

They will be found like that for the same reason that people trapped in a fire have wounds on their hands before they burn to death.
They are trying to get out.
The drownees are choking and dying.
It's not a relaxing process so you'd be unlikely to find any of them looking all serene and at peace, perhaps with hands folded neatly across their chests as their brain forces their body to spasm in a vain attampt to survive under 40 fathoms of crushing, suffocating death.

Any more questions requiring blatantly obvious answers ?

I thought based on the subject of this thread, that the victim was in the process of drowning.

How so?

"How so" what ?

OK, I'll interpolate.
You mean, why do I think the question has a blatantly obvious answer ?