A large crowd gathered in front of Pamplona’s city hall in Spain to celebrate the start of the nine-day festival
According to emergency officials, three men have passed away this week after sustaining severe injuries during bull runs in eastern Spain. Two men, 50 and 46, perished on Tuesday at a bull run hosted in a neighborhood of Valencia, an eastern port city, after being viciously assaulted by bulls. An elderly French tourist who was injured by a bull on July 8 in a village close to Alicante and was in intensive care since then passed away on Monday.
In one of the incidents, a 56-year-old man was thrown into the air by a bull while standing behind a block in the center of the street in Picassent, south of the city of Valencia, and sustained a traumatic brain injury. Nine days after the incident, he passed away on Tuesday in a hospital in Valencia.
Man, aged 50, also died in hospital after his lung was pierced by a bull in Meliana, north of Valencia. In recent years, harsh events have grown commonplace in bull-running. The bull is an animal, according to the mayor of Meliana, and people know the risk of this sport very well.
A long-standing Spanish custom, bull-running festivals—where groups of people rush in front of one or more half-ton fighting bulls—are held annually in numerous places. 35 people were hurt this year at Pamplona’s San Fermin running of the bulls, the most famous celebration in Spain. Due to the Covid epidemic, it had not been held for the previous three years.
After the first running of the bulls in three years began in Pamplona, Spain, six people—among them a 30-year-old male from the US city of Atlanta—was transported to the hospital. None of the six was gored by a bull during the run, the Navarra regional government press office told. The other five injured people, four men and a 16-year-old female who are all Spaniards, were taken to the hospital with various trauma injuries, while the American sustained a fractured left arm.
A large crowd gathered in front of Pamplona’s city hall to celebrate the start of the nine-day festival, which is well-known among tourists. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the annual celebration in 2020 and 2021.
Every morning during the week-long San Fermin festival, hundreds of daredevils chase six fighting bulls 850 meters from a holding area to the bullring in Pamplona. Accidents happen often. At the festival this year, which finished on July 14, five individuals died. Since 1911, sixteen people have died at the bull runs in Pamplona.
What happens at the Bull Run And The festival?
Bulls and steers are imprisoned in packed enclosures and then let loose onto the streets for the annual Running of the Bulls at the San Fermin festival. Fearful runners, often tourists, chase the bulls as they crowd together to find safety with the steers who have been trained to lead the herd towards the bullring.
The bulls are corralled into the bullring after being chased for around 800 meters uphill through the little streets. They are kept here in preparation for the nighttime bullfights, which, unknowing to those running in the race, will almost probably culminate in a terrible death sentence for each and every one of them.
When the bull enters the arena and the bullfighters approach him, the conventional Spanish bullfight begins. The bull is made to rush from one end of the arena to the other by the bullfighters as soon as they begin. When the bull is worn out, a man riding a horse and wearing a blindfold enters the arena. He stabs the bull in the rear with a lance, forcing it to bleed. As additional men approach on foot, the blood loss is intended to frighten and weaken the bull.
The matador, whose name means “killer,” makes his final appearance when the bull has had enough of losing blood and being provoked nonstop. He attempts to kill the weary bull by slashing him with a sword between the shoulder blades and into the heart after inciting a few charges from him.
