No gorings yet in 4 days of Pamplona bull run festival
PAMPLONA, Spain (AP) — Thrill seekers avoided any gorings for a fourth straight bull run at Pamplona’s San Fermín Festival on Sunday.
The Red Cross’ preliminary medical report and the city's hospital say four people needed treatment in a hospital for hard knocks they received during Sunday’s early morning bull run. At least one young man needed to be evacuated on a stretcher to an ambulance wearing a neck brace.
The six bulls took 2 1/2 minutes to charge through the 875-meter (956-yard) course through Pamplona’s old quarter.
The run finishes at Pamplona’s bullring, where later in the day the bulls are killed by professional bullfighters.
There were no gorings either on the first three days of this year’s festival. There are four days remaining.
Eight people were gored in 2019, the last festival before a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixteen people have died in Pamplona’s bull runs since 1910, with the last death in 2009.
Tens of thousands of foreign visitors come to the Pamplona festival that was made known to the English-speaking world through Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.”
The mad rush of the bull run is followed by general hedonism with people drinking, eating, attending concerts and partying late into the night. The bulls are killed in the bullring later in the day.