SPAIN — Five people were hospitalized after the opening bull run of this year’s San Fermin festival in Pamplona, including two Americans and a Spaniard who were gored by bulls, officials in the northern Spanish city said Sunday.
A 46-year old man from San Francisco was gored in the neck in the city’s bullring, at the end of the 850-meter (930-yard) course. His injuries required surgery, the regional government reported.
A 23-year old man from Florence, Kentucky and a 40-year-old Spanish man were both gored in the thigh. Two young Spanish men sustained head injuries.
The running of the bulls in Pamplona draws about 1 million spectators every year. During the nine-day San Fermin fiesta, six bulls are run every morning in the city’s narrow streets and then killed in afternoon bullfights.
Hundreds of “runners” race ahead of or next to the bulls, while the more risk-averse watch from balconies. Some Americans come to follow in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, who immortalized the Pamplona festival in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.”
The first run of this year’s festival run featured bulls from the Puerto de San Lorenzo cattle breeder.
The pack dashed together along the cobblestoned, barricaded street course. Toward the end, one of the bulls stumbled briefly, causing panic and at least one goring when it resumed the race and charged at some of the racers.
The local Red Cross said emergency personnel attended to 48 people with less serious or minor injuries, including two who were trampled by the racing bulls.
The run, which lasted 2 minutes and 41 seconds, came after the festival’s official opening — or “Chupinazo” — on Friday, when tens of thousands of party-goers shower each other with wine and champagne in a packed square.
The annual festival also includes music performances, traditional sports and dance displays, a religious procession on Sunday to honor the local patron, a firework competition and endless partying.
(AP)
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11 Responses
Its times like these when one has to think if the Possuk of U’Bechukoisayhem Lo Telechu is really needed.
Is “Chupinazo” Spanish for “chutzpah”? Or “meshuganah”?
And to paraphrase the old definition of news, it’s not news if a bull gores a man, it’s news if a man gores a bull.
And, finally, it’s not YWN news if there is no Y involved.
Where is PETA?
Where is PETA?
PETA can’t fight a festival that’s been going on for over 400 years.
it’s not news if a bull gores a man, it’s news if a man gores a bull.
The bulls get “gored” in the arena, which is where they’re running to.
At least one Spanish city has switched to “Running of the Balls”.
ya gotta be nuts!
Ask me if I care.
avi732 do you care?
שחיטה is around a lot longer than 400 years
Doesn’t seem to faze Peta
Well, now, let’s see, said the rabbi as he stroked his beard thoughtfully,
If a shor gores a chamor I know the makor.
If a shor gores a total בור, the owner is pator.
zcs, What do you mean, “where is PETA”? You cannot seriously expect anyone to believe that you are unaware of PETA’s condemnation of this and all such events. PETA are a ridiculous bunch of fanatical ideologists, but they are utterly consistent. They actually believe their ideology, and you know what? Without the Torah it isn’t so ridiculous. If we didn’t have the Torah telling us that Hashem made the world and everything in it for our benefit, and that we have the right to exploit it to the fullest, what right would we have to lord it over animals? ומותר האדם מן הבהמה אין, לבד הנשמה הטהורה. So if one doesn’t believe in the נשמה then takeh, how do you justify killing a lab mouse to save a child’s life, let alone killing a chicken so we can enjoy some tasty meat, let alone a sadistic sport like bull-fighting, which even the halacha condemns?
Aaron613, thank you for asking. No, I don’t 🙂