A father and son got the scare of a lifetime while inspecting a giant dinosaur statue in Spain on Saturday when they discovered the body of a missing man inside the papier-mâché plant-eater.
The pair noted a foul smell and the father eventually spotted the body through a crack in the stegosaurus statue’s hollow leg, according to local reports in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. That’s when he called police.
Police say the body belonged to a 39-year-old man whose family reported him missing earlier in the day. Firefighters sliced the statue open so that police could retrieve the body.
The victim had reportedly dropped his cellphone into the dinosaur and ventured in to retrieve it. He went in head-first, got stuck and ultimately died inside.
“It’s an accidental death. There was no violence,” a spokesperson for the regional police force, Mosso d’Esquadra, told The Guardian. “This person got inside the statue’s leg and got trapped … He entered the statue head first and couldn’t get out.”
An autopsy is pending to find the exact cause of death.
“It seems he was there for a couple of days,” the spokesperson added.
The statue was once used to promote a nearby movie theatre.
It has since been removed.
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