A 39-year-old man met a tragic end after becoming trapped inside a giant stegosaurus statue in Spain, in a bizarre incident that concluded a desperate search by his family.
The man's body was discovered in May 2021 inside the papier-mâché dinosaur located in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona.
The Discovery and Police Response
The regional police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, were alerted to the situation by a father and son who noticed something unusual inside the statue. A police spokeswoman confirmed to The Guardian that they found the man's body inside the leg of the structure.
The Mossos d'Esquadra did not treat the death as suspicious, instead classifying it as a terrible accident. The spokeswoman explained, "This person got inside the statue's leg and got trapped. It's an accidental death; there was no violence."
A Desperate Attempt to Retrieve a Phone
Investigators believe the sequence of events began when the man dropped his mobile phone. In an attempt to recover it, he entered the statue headfirst. Tragically, he found himself unable to escape from the confined space within the dinosaur's leg.
Firefighters were quickly called to the scene. They had to carefully dismantle and cut open the statue to extract the man's body. Based on their findings, it is believed the man had been trapped inside for a couple of days before his discovery.
Aftermath and a Similar Incident
In a poignant detail, the man's family had reported him missing just hours before his body was found. Following the tragic event, the stegosaurus statue, which was originally placed as an advertisement for a nearby cinema, was removed from its location. Locals paid their respects, leaving flowers at the site where the statue once stood.
This is not the only instance of an adult becoming stuck inside a sculpture. In a separate event with a more fortunate outcome, a 26-year-old man in Canada had to be rescued by firefighters after he became trapped in the Talus Dome sculpture, requiring heavy-duty equipment to free him.
