Casualties include three men gored as famed San Fermin festival draws to a close
PAMPLONA, Spain: Six men were injured Friday during the eighth and final bull run of Spain’s famed San Fermin festival, bringing to 35 the total number of daredevils wounded during this year’s fiesta.
Five men between the ages of 29 and 61 were taken to hospital to treat bruises of varying degrees of severity, the regional government of Navarre said in a statement.
A sixth man was treated in the infirmary of the northern city of Pamplona’s bullring for bruises he suffered during the run, the local branch of the Red Cross said in a tweet.
The bulls from the Miura ranch in the southwestern province of Seville completed the 850-metre course from a holding pen to the city bull ring in two minutes and 21 seconds.
Each morning from July 7-14, hundreds of daredevils, many wearing traditional white shirts with red scarves tied around their necks, tested their bravery by running ahead of a pack of bulls through the course set up in the narrow, winding streets of the medieval city.
The bulls face almost certain death in afternoon bullfights featuring Spain’s top matadors.
The San Fermin festival, which was made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, draws people from around the world.
Three men who took part in this year’s bull runs were gored, including a 58-year-old from the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao.
Six Americans and a British and French national were among the other foreigners injured this year.
Although the runs are over, the festival’s closing ceremony will take place later at midnight.
Sixteen people have been killed in the bull runs since records started in 1911. The last death was in 2009 when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard in the neck, heart and lungs.
Source: Bangkok Post
