Police in Catalonia are investigating the death of a 39-year-old man who was found dead inside a large dinosaur statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a satellite town of Barcelona. The man is believed to have become trapped while trying to retrieve his mobile phone.
The body was discovered on Saturday afternoon after a father and son noticed something inside the papier-mâché stegosaurus and alerted authorities. A spokeswoman for the regional police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, said the death is not being treated as suspicious.
“A father and son noticed that there was something inside and raised the alarm,” she said. “We found the body of a man inside the leg of this dinosaur statue. It’s an accidental death; there was no violence. This person got inside the statue’s leg and got trapped. It looks as though he was trying to retrieve a mobile phone, which he’d dropped. It looks like he entered the statue head first and couldn’t get out.”
Firefighters were called to cut into the statue to remove the body. The spokeswoman added that autopsy results are pending, but the man is believed to have been inside for a couple of days. Local media report that the man had been reported missing by his family just hours before his body was found.
