2 hurt in Spain`s running of the bulls
Loading ...Charging bulls plowed into or trampled piles of fallen thrillseekers Wednesday, injuring at least two people at the running of the bulls, including an American who was gored in the abdomen.
On the third day of Spain’s San Fermin festival, the six half-ton fighting bulls accompanied by steer stayed in a tight pack for much of the run, which makes the sprint safer.
But pileups of fallen runners formed at several points, and bulls plowed into at least one of them and ran over others. One man in sneakers, running shorts and a tank-top bumped into the side of bull making a sharp turn and was thrown into the air.
The Spanish Red Cross said a 22-year-old man from California was gored in the abdomen and will have to undergo surgery. His name was not released.
A Greek man was injured in the face after being run over by bulls, the Red Cross said in a statement.
Earlier, Red Cross spokesman Jose Aldaba had put the injury toll at four. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
One bull got separated late in the course, turning back toward the starting point several times and charging at people. At times it just stopped and stared at people looking on from behind a wooden fence.
Herders with sticks tugged on the animal’s tail to turn it around and eventually guided it into the bullring where the 850-meter (half-mile) run ends.
Andy Firestone, an 18-year-old from Los Angeles, called his first run at Pamplona “the most incredible experience of my life. I was afraid, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“(It’s) a rush of Adrenalin. I’ll definitely do it again,” said Australian Hugh Fontayn, 19.
The runs to the city bullring take place at 8 a.m. daily and are the highlight of a centuries-old festival that became world famous with Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.”
Professional matadors fight, and invariably kill, the bulls each afternoon of the festival.
Fourteen runners have died in the running of the bulls since record-keeping began in 1924.
The last fatality from a goring was a 22-year-old American, Matthew Tassio, in 1995. In 2003, a 63-year-old Pamplona native, Fermin Etxeberri, was trampled in the head by a bull and died after spending several months in a coma.
On Sunday, a 23-year-old Irishman died after falling from an ancient wall that encircles the old quarter of Pamplona.
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