VICTIM...Daniel Chong and his lawyer
Eugene Iredale.
A SAN
DIEGO college student who federal drug agents forgot and left in a holding cell
for five days without food, water or access to a toilet said Tuesday that he
drank his own urine to survive.
Daniel
Chong also said that he bit into his glasses to break them and tried to use a
shard to scratch 'Sorry Mom' into his arm.
The
24-year-old University of California, San Diego, engineering student was swept
up as one of nine suspects in an April 21 drug raid that netted 18,000 ecstasy
pills, other drugs and weapons.
Chong
said federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents told him he would be let
go. One agent even promised to drive him home from the DEA field office in
Kearny Mesa, he said.
Instead,
he was returned to a holding cell to await release. DEA spokeswoman Amy
Roderick said he was accidentally left there.
Chong
said he could hear the muffled voices of agents outside his five-by-10-foot
windowless cell and the door of the next cell being opened and closed. He
kicked and screamed as loud as he could, but apparently, his cries for help
went unheard.
"I
had to recycle my own urine," he said. "I had to do what I had to do
to survive."
When
he was found on April 25, he was taken to a hospital and treated for cramps,
dehydration and a perforated lung - the result of ingesting the broken glass.
"When
they opened the door, one of them said `Here's the water you've been asking
for," Chong said. "But I was pretty out of it at the time."
Chong
also ingested a white powder DEA agents said was left in the cell accidentally
and later identified as methamphetamine.
The
agency hasn't commented on Chong's claim that he was without basic necessities
for days.
Chong's
attorney, Eugene Iredale, said he plans to file a claim against the federal
government, and if it is denied he will proceed with filing a federal lawsuit.
(AP)
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