Student forgotten in cell for 5 days to sue DEA.

A San Diego college student filed a legal claim Wednesday for damages suffered when he was left handcuffed and without food or water in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for five days last month, CNN reported.

A DEA statement said Daniel Chong, 23, was "accidentally left" in a holding cell.

The fifth-year engineering student at the University of California, San Diego, was detained on the morning of April 21, a Saturday, when DEA agents raided a house they suspected was being used to distribute MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy.

A multi-agency narcotics task force including state agents detained nine people and seized about 18,000 MDMA pills, marijuana, prescription medications, hallucinogenic mushrooms, several guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition from the house, the DEA said.

Chong admitted going to the house "to get high with his friends," the DEA said. He later told a San Diego TV station that he knew nothing about the other drugs and guns. He was never formally arrested or charged, the DEA said.

The agents sent seven suspects to county jail and released another person, but Chong "was accidentally left in one of the cells," the DEA said. The agency did not explain how he was forgotten for five days in the small, windowless cell.

It wasn't until the afternoon of Wednesday, April 25, that an agent opened the steel door to Chong's cell and found the handcuffed student.

He was rushed to a hospital, where he was kept in intensive care for two days, having been close to death from kidney failure.

The Cerritos, California, native is now recovering at home.