One man suffered a tragic and horrifying death which left his loved ones searching for him for days – and it was all a complete accident.

It’s thought that the 39-year-old man was trying to retrieve his phone when he became trapped inside of a huge dinosaur statue. Following police investigations, it seemed likely he was trying to find his phone, but when his body was first spotted, the questions were endless.

In a satellite town of Barcelona, known as Santa Coloma de Gramenet, officers were called to the statue, following a father and son’s report of something inside the statue. They said structure was a papier-mâché stegosaurus where they found his body in May 2021.

Despite the unusual circumstances, the regional police force did not treat his death as suspicious but instead as an unlucky accident. A spokeswoman for the regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra explained: “A father and son noticed that there was something inside and raised the alarm,” The Guardian reported.

She added: “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.” 

The officer further explained they believe he was trying to get his phone, which he dropped, and went into the statue headfirst. It was only after doing this he realised he couldn’t get out of the dinosaur. 

Firefighters were soon called to help cut the statue and retrieve the man from inside of its leg. At the time of the incident, it was believed from their evidence the man had been inside of the dinosaur for a couple of days.

Local media reports dating back to 2021 suggest he had been reported missing by his family a mere few hours before his body was tragically discovered. Following his death, the stegosaurus statue was removed from Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

Its initial purpose was to serve as an advertisement for a cinema nearby. Although the cinema had since closed down and boarded up, the statue remained in its place, sitting outside of the city’s Cubic building. 

This isn’t the only time a grown man has become stuck within a sculpture, although others had a luckier outcome. When attempting to climb the famous Talus Dome sculpture in Canada, made up of 1,000 metal balls, the 26-year-old had to be rescued by firefighters.

He accidentally slipped through the mould into an opening and became trapped. It was only thanks to a passerby that the services were notified of his whereabouts, and they had to use some heavy-hitting rescue equipment to extricate him.