Festivalgoers enjoying the Running of the Bulls event in Spain were left shocked after a bull escaped and injured five people. They were hospitalised with injuries including trauma to the chest
Revellers attending a famous bull festival in Spain have come head to head with one animal who escaped – ending in a gore and emergency care.
Five people have been hospitalised this week after being attacked during the Running of the Bulls festival in Pamplona old town. The victims, all described as men aged between 21 to 49, were injured during the first encierro. One man was left suffering from a serious chest trauma injury and several rib fractures.
One person who took part described the nightmare and said: “It was panic out there today. It’s a miracle if only one person ended up getting gored. It could have been into double figures.” Chaos erupted after one of the bull’s became separated from the rest of the pack and threw one runner into the air. The 90 stone ( 575 kilo) bull, called Caminante, slammed the man down onto the tarmac, injuring his head.
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At one point it even turned on one of the ranchers trying to guide it towards pens in the bullring at the end of the half-mile course. And towards the finish it appeared to dig its horns into the stomach of one man.
In an initial casualty round-up, a Red Cross official confirmed one person had suffered a gore wound and had been among five people taken to hospital. It was not immediately clear how bad the injury was although the victim is said to have been gored in the arm.
Caminante was the second heaviest of the six fighting bulls that took part, with another called Lioso weighing in at a whopping 580 kilos (just over 91 stone).
The famous festival in the northern Spanish town, popularly known as the Sanfermines, kicked off at midday on Sunday with the traditional opening ceremony called the Chupinazo.
Thousands of revellers dressed in the must-wear white outfits with a red bandana around their necks ending up soaked in wine and sangria.
Sixteen people have been killed during the bull runs at the annual festival, which finishes on July 14 and was made famous by 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel ‘The Sun Also Rises’, since records began in 1910.
The most recent death was in 2009 when 27-year-old Daniel Jimeno, from Madrid, was gored in the neck by a bull called Capuchino.Several foreigners, from Australians to Americans through to Brits and Irish, are normally among the injured.
The first of the eight encierros last year took place four hours after a San Fermin reveller collapsed and died. Police rushed to the scene and tried to save the 40-year-old man but were unable to resuscitate him.