Student awarded €3 million after being forgotten in jail

A university student in the US city of San Diego has received €3 million from the US government after he was abandoned for more than four days in a prison cell, his lawyer said.

Daniel Chong said he drank his urine to stay alive, tried to carve a message to his mother on his arm and hallucinated.

He was held in a drug raid in 2012, but told he would not be charged. Nobody returned to his cell for four days.

The justice department's inspector is investigating what happened.

Mr Chong said he slid a shoelace under the door and screamed to get attention before five or six people found him covered in his faeces in the cell at the Drug Enforcement Administration's San Diego headquarters, the Associated Press reports.

After Mr Chong was rescued, he spent five days in hospital recovering from dehydration, kidney failure, cramps and a perforated oesophagus. He also lost 7kg.

Authorities determined that they would not pursue charges after questioning him.

One of Mr Chong's lawyers said that a police officer then put him in the cell and told him: "We'll come get you in a minute."