This one also happened:

We don't know if the man was trampled. But we do know that he did survive because there have been no reported deaths at the historic bull run in Pamplona, northern Spain this year ... yet.

According to the Red Cross, a 26-year-old Australian was one of six people were taken to hospital on the opening day. A 73-year-old man from Pamplona was gored in his right leg, the Australian bruised his right knee and a 21-year-old Japanese man hurt his back. Three others suffered cuts and bruises.

But that is often what happens when you decide it's a fun idea to put a red scarf around your neck and run down a street in front of cranky bulls.

Spanish tradition says the true origin of the run began in northeastern Spain during the early 14th century. While transporting cattle in order to sell them at the market, men would try to speed the process by hurrying their cattle using tactics of fear and excitement. After years of this practice, the transportation and hurrying began to turn into a competition, as young adults would attempt to race in front of the bulls and make it safely to their pens without being overtaken. When the popularity of this practice increased and was noticed more and more by the expanding population of Spanish cities, a tradition was created and stands to this day.^[5]

Animal rights groups protest against the tradition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/..._the_Bulls

The festival of San Fermín (or Sanfermines, Basque: Sanferminak) in the city of Pamplona (Navarre, Spain), is a deeply rooted celebration held annually from 12:00, 6 July, when the opening of the party is marked by setting off the pyrotechnic chupinazo,^[1] to midnight 14 July, with the singing of the Pobre de Mí. While its most famous event is the encierro, or the running of the bulls, which happens at 8:00 am from July 7th to July 14th, the week long celebration involves many other traditional and folkloric events. It is known locally as Sanfermines and is held in honor of Saint Fermin, the co-patron of Navarre. Its events were central to the plot ofThe Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, which brought it to the general attention of English-speaking people. It has become probably the most internationally renowned fiesta in Spain. Over 1,000,000 people come to watch this festival.

Very cool to learn all of this stuff, Tremo. I think it's still a stupid tradition, though.

For some really telling pictures of the fiesta these days:


https://s5-eu5.ixquick-pr...ic_052.jpg

Lammastide said:

Very cool to learn all of this stuff, Tremo. I think it's still a stupid tradition, though.

Yeah, I can get to that. The running of the bulls used to be different tho. Before Hemingway's days.

These days the fiesta draws so many people from all over the world, that it has become such an important commmercial event for the city that it cannot really go back in time anymore.


:ole:

__

[Edited 7/16/13 13:54pm]

JoeTyler said:

the guy's name is Patrick E. (20 yo), he was gored by a bull this morning (during the San Fermin "fiestas", where hundreds of guys are chased in narrow streets by packs of 6 angry bulls)

he's stable but the docs had to extirpate his spleen

what do you think about this kind of "fiestas" and its rising popularity among young US folks??

Loco

Tremolina said:

This picture is kinda telling. You see quite a few foreigners and they are not exactly the smartest ones.

Loco

[img:$uid]http://i800.pho.../img:$uid]

His name was, I am told, Matthew Tassio. He was 22 years old and came from Chicago. We never met, but 10 years ago I watched him die.

For most of the year, Pamplona is just like any other Spanish provincial town. There's a regular market, the seasons are delineated by religious and agricultural festivals, and from time to time, it slips into bucolic slumber.

But in July Pamplona is transformed into the focus of a cosmopolitan bacchanal. The annual nine-day festival of San Fermin, which concludes today, draws the curious, the naive and the foolhardy from around the world to run through the streets pursued by six fighting bulls.

Spurred on by the writings of Ernest Hemingway, who never actually ran with the bulls himself, but whose cult 1926 novel, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, it continues to hold a baleful fascination for many readers.

Thousands of people descend on the city every year to sample the most extreme sport of the lot: bull running.

FIESTA AT PAMPLONA the San Fermin festival began in the 16th Century it is named after the patron saint of the diocese of Pamplona the bulls run through the streets in the morning and fight in the bullring in the afternoon Pamplona's population of 200,000 swells with up to two million visitors over the weekend its all-night parties are as famous as its bulls

Having spent a few days in the cooler air of the Spanish Pyrenees, I arrived in town on the afternoon of 12 July 1995, and made my way to the start of the bull run, a corral near the church of San Domingo.

Here, at eight the next morning, in a tradition not changed for centuries, a rocket would signal that the bulls had been released, heralding an 850-metre charge through Pamplona's winding streets to the bullring.

As the huge fighting bulls charged up the cobbled incline, San Domingo would become a scene of utter chaos and mayhem and would witness, for one young man, the final act of his life.

Fiesta is the one time of the year when no-one dares to look down on the local drunks and tramps Pamplonan resident

An hour before the off, thousands of young men - inexplicably, women runners are frowned upon - began to gather near the start.

Many were drunk, and the scene resembled nothing less than a routed army. The reek of stale wine made me nauseous. I decided to sit this one out.

Fear in their eyes

A traditional song cut the air, and a whole forest of rolled up newspapers - used to bash the bulls on the nose by the most macho runners - were waved in unison.

Then, on the stroke of eight, and with the sound of an exploding rocket filling the air, they were off. From my perch on the corner by the church, I had a first-class view of the action. Swathes of runners launched themselves up the hill to my left.

MATTHEW TASSIO 22-year-old backpacker from Illinois travelling across Europe with friends before beginning his career as an electrical engineer arrived overnight by bus from Barcelona because hotels were full fatally, he received no tips from locals about bull run tactics so he did not know the cardinal rule - when you go down, stay down

Then, almost instantaneously, the crowd parted to reveal a huge black bull. Men were slipping on the dewy cobblestones, the look of fear in their eyes mirroring the desperation and anger of the pursuing beasts.

Within seconds, the horde was upon us, bodies crashed into the heavy wooden safety barrier in front of me with a dull thud.

But one sound, a sound that will remain with me until my dying day, was totally different.

Like a shotgun blast mixed with falling timber, I heard and felt something, or maybe someone, smash into the paling in front of me.

A flash of black, high in the air, and it was all over. I looked down and saw a body, prone on the ground some 10ft away, the eyes already glazing, a patch of blood spreading about it.

Like Hemingway, Matthew Peter Tassio was from Illinois. As he was running up San Domingo, he was felled by one of the oxen which run alongside the bulls. As he struggled to his feet, witnesses said, he was charged.

There have been 13 deaths since 1924

The fighting bull which gored him weighed half a tonne. It hit him in the abdomen, severed a main artery, sliced through his kidney and punctured his liver, before tossing him seven metres (23 feet) in the air.

I was not so much sickened by the death or the blood, I must confess. But the sight of people capturing the scene on their cameras, to be shown to friends and family at a later date, turned my stomach.

The last thing I saw before I left was Matthew Tassio's body being carried away on a stretcher. His face was uncovered. There was no rictus of fear or pain, merely an expression of mystification, like a child struggling to solve a mental arithmetic puzzle.

In the car, 40 minutes later, heading out of town, the local radio told us what I already knew, that Matthew Tassio had died in hospital of massive blood loss.

From time to time, my mind strays back to that cool, sunny morning in 1995, and I think of Matthew, his parents and friends.

I haven't been back to Pamplona.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/h...679751.stm

A man died this morning after being gored in the neck and lung during the famous San Fermin running of the bulls fiesta in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona.

The runner, Daniel Gimeno Romero, 27, from Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, was one of more than a dozen people rushed to hospital after one of the most dangerous runs in recent years. Nobody had died as a result of goring since 1995 during the annual San Fermin fiesta, in which half-tonne bulls charge along an 850-metre course through the city's streets with a crowd of runners.

The victim was taken straight into the operating theatre but doctors were unable to save him. He had been on holiday with his parents and girlfriend, who identified him. Early reports that the dead man was British turned out to be incorrect.

Three other people who were gored are not believed to be in danger. The death occurred after one of the bulls became separated from the rest of the pack and began to attack runners. It turned around several times and charged back into the crowd.

A video on the Cuatro website shot by an onlooker showed Romero on the ground and trying to scrabble towards the thick wooden railings that mark the edge of the course as the rogue bull turned back on the runners.

As he sat up and turned around, the bull lowered its head and rammed a horn into the join of his neck and shoulder.

The victim was pulled under the railings and attended to by Red Cross attendants as other panicked runners jumped the barrier and fell.

The bull was finally pulled away by other runners who grabbed it by the tail and the horns on the last stretch of the run between a holding pen and the city's bull ring..

The bull's horn had caught the victim "at the height of the left-hand superclavicular region", said Fernando Boneta, who is in charge of medical services at the fiesta. The horn then followed "a downwards trajectory that affected the left lung, the aorta and the vena cava".

Two of the other injured runners are reported to be a 61-year-old American man and a 24-year-old Argentine. The American was struck in the chest and had internal bleeding in his lungs. Doctors said he was in intensive care but his condition was not considered life-threatening.

A 20-year-old man from London is reported to have sustained bumps and bruises.

The runs attract more than 2,000 people every morning of the nine-day fiesta. Many of the runners are young foreigners, drawn to an event made famous by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises.

Fifteen people have died at the Pamplona event over the past century. The last fatal goring was of 22-year-old American Matthew Tassio in 1995.

http://www.guardian.co.uk...n-pamplona

It's a miracle that in almost a 100 years not more than 15 people have died already. There are many of injured tho', some very severely.

_

[Edited 7/17/13 11:31am]

There are many fun things 2 do on this planet...................this isn't one of them.

The male race is so stupid sometimes

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

The male race is so stupid sometimes

This is exactly what i was thinking Richard.

Stymie said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

The male race is so stupid sometimes

This is exactly what i was thinking Richard.

Both of you shouldn't judge so quickly and instead look for the women in the pictures. They particpate as well, as I also pointed out already.

Tremolina said:

Stymie said:

This is exactly what i was thinking Richard.

Both of you shouldn't judge so quickly and instead look for the women in the pictures. They particpate as well, as I also pointed out already.

In that case, the human race is stupid.

Tremolina said:

Stymie said:

This is exactly what i was thinking Richard.

Both of you shouldn't judge so quickly and instead look for the women in the pictures. They particpate as well, as I also pointed out already.

It's mainly men who do this dumb crap. Don't try and deflect just because you see a few lesbos

Stymie said:

Tremolina said:

Both of you shouldn't judge so quickly and instead look for the women in the pictures. They particpate as well, as I also pointed out already.

In that case, the human race is stupid.

I agree.