Prison Food

What Not to Eat When The DEA Totally Forgets They’ve Imprisoned You

Concertina
Concertina Photo: Katerha via Flickr

It’s probably a helpful asset that poor Daniel Chong is a college student, complete with that demographic’s iron stomach and ability to drink almost anything. LAist relays the shocking story of this 23-year-old UCSD student, detained in a federal prison after getting swept up in a drug bust less than two weeks ago. After surviving five days forgotten in a five-by-ten holding cell without food and water, his pleas for help totally ignored or unheard, agents attended to the suffering senior, who had been technically “released” for toking up in the wrong place at the wrong time, then sent him to the ER after realizing he’d been forgotten. How did he survive (warning, it’s gross and horrifying).

According to Chong, the young man “drank his own urine, and inadvertently ate shards of glass and methamphetamine discarded in the cell.” Sadder still, the victim had scratched “Sorry mom” on his arm using bits of glass from his eyeglasses, which he also ate while hallucinating, causing a perforated lung.

If there’s any conceivable upside to this DEA disaster that saw meth inadvertently left in an abandoned innocent’s cell, it’s a potential lifetime supply of lobster and caviar once he sues the hell out of the agency. Does anyone smell another settlement?

CA College Student Drank His Urine After DEA Abandoned Him In Cell For 5 Days [LAist via NBC]

What Not to Eat When The DEA Totally Forgets They’ve Imprisoned You