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Man gored to death in Pamplona bull run
Tom Worden10.07.09
A man was gored to death today during the traditional bull-running festival in Pamplona, northern Spain.
The animal gored the man's lungs and the back of his neck during the fourth bull run of this year's San Fermín Festival.
A London man, aged 20, was also gored in his left thigh and two others were injured.
The death occurred when a light brown bull named Capuchino broke away from the main pack of bulls and careered into a group of runners and spectators. The victim has not been named, but is thought to be Spanish.
Paramedics tried to revive him in the street before taking him to hospital, where he died shortly after undergoing emergency surgery.
Television footage showed a bull flipping a man, then goring him as he lay curled in a ball on the ground.
Experienced runners tried to distract the animal by pulling its tail and smacking it with sticks.
Pamplona is famed worldwide for its annual running of the bulls event, which takes place as part of the nine-day festival. The bulls are herded along the city's cobbled streets to the bullring, where they are killed in the evening. Fifteen people have died at the festival since 1911. The last was in 1995, when an American man was gored.
Reader views (2)
Considering the kind of bloke who goes off to Pamplona from the UK for stag nights&c, I've often thought there'd be a lot of sense in staging a similar event in Romford: you could close off the ring road, the money would stay in this country, zillions of polluting air miles would be cancelled, and Darwin Awards could be handed out to the next-of-kin of the more successful participants.
- Mdj E10, london uk
if we left the bulls alone to get on with their lives thissort of thing wouldn't happen.
why goad the poor creatures for the 'dubious entertainment' of the great unwashed?
if the animals started running humans down streets for fun, we'd be well upset and call it barberous.
although, come to think of it. . . . running a few politicos, bankers and other dubious characters through the streeyts for a public pelting of rotten fruit might prove a grand crowd puller.
- M.O'Brien, london.uk
