In 2021, police in Catalonia encountered one of the strangest accidental deaths in recent years when a father and son reported a foul smell coming from a papier-mache stegosaurus statue in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona. Upon closer inspection, they discovered a body through a crack in the statue's hollow leg.
The remains were identified as a 39-year-old man, who had been reported missing by his family only hours earlier. The regional police force, Mossos d'Esquadra, recovered the body from inside the statue.
Accidental Death, No Violence
A spokesperson for the authorities explained that the man appeared to have climbed into the dinosaur's leg headfirst while trying to retrieve a dropped mobile phone, and then became trapped, unable to get out. "It's an accidental death; there was no violence," she said at the time. "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 headfirst and couldn't get out."
The inside of the statue was so tight that three fire brigade teams were called to the scene and had to cut open the leg of the stegosaurus replica to retrieve the body.
Investigation and Community Impact
Police believed the man had been trapped for a couple of days, though they could not confirm exactly how he ended up stuck upside down. The incident was widely reported by Spanish media, including El País and La Vanguardia, due to its unusual nature.
The statue was displayed outside the city's Cubic Building, serving as decorative signage for an old cinema. Following the discovery, Santa Coloma de Gramenet's city council confirmed the statue's removal in official statements.
