Daniel Chong left in jail for days and forced to drink his own urine gets $4m

Mike Gallagher

Jul 30, 2013 - 15:45

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Daniel Chong

THE Justice Department will pay $US4.1 million to a Califoia college student left in a holding cell for four days without food or water.

Daniel Chong, 23, was detained in an April 2012 drug raid in San Diego and left in the 1.5-metre x 3-metre windowless holding cell. He said he drank his own urine to stay alive and tried to write a farewell message to his mother with his own blood.

Chong's attoey, Eugene Iredale, said on Tuesday that no one has yet been disciplined for the April 2012 incident, and no criminal charges will be filed.

Iredale says the Justice Department's inspector general is investigating what caused Chong's near-death experience.

Chong's attoeys say the Drug Enforcement Administration had no policy on the treatment of detainees at the time. It does now, and that policy includes cameras in cells and daily inspections.

Chong, who was an engineering student at University of Califoia, San Diego, was at a friend's house in April 2012 when a US Drug Enforcement Administration raid netted 18,000 ecstasy pills, other drugs and weapons. Chong and eight others were taken into custody.

Agents told Chong he would not be charged and had him wait in the cell at DEA offices in San Diego. The door did not reopen for four days, when agents found him severely dehydrated and covered in his own feces.

Chong said he began to hallucinate on the third day. He urinated on a metal bench to drink his urine. He stacked a blanket, his pants and shoes on the bench and tried to reach an overhead fire sprinkler, futilely swatting at it with his cuffed hands to set it off.

Chong said last year that he gave up and accepted death. He bit into his eyeglasses to break them. He said he used a shard of glass to carve "Sorry Mom" onto his arm so he could leave something for her. He managed to finish an "S."

Chong was hospitalised for five days for dehydration, kidney failure, cramps and a perforated esophagus. He lost 7 kilos.

The DEA issued a rare public apology at the time.

Chong had filed a $US20 million claim against the federal govement a year ago.

A DEA spokesman, Rusty Payne, referred questions on Monday to the Justice Department, which handled settlement negotiations. A call to the Justice Department's public affairs office was not retued.