Bull Fighting Goes Wrong

Bull Fighting On Even Terms Is Not For The Faint Hearted
It is great fun for the spectators and the bull.

 

Bull Fighter Repents Allegedly 
This one is an urban legend, a wrong legend.

 

Bull Fighters Come Unstuck - One Man Dies
QUOTE
British student escapes death after being gored by killer bull at Pamplona festival but one Spanish runner dies
For a bull, it was on the smallish side, at just over a ton. And its name, Capuchino, sounded harmless enough. But Briton Alex Short soon found out this rogue animal was anything but frothy after it tossed him into the air, goring him in the leg, during Spain's running of the bulls in Pamplona. The geography student, who is recovering in hospital today, said he was so pumped with adrenaline at the time that he felt no pain at all during the bull's wild attack.

Mayhem: British student Alex Short is scooped up and tossed to the ground

Head to head: The bull threatens to gore Mr Short, but it left after being distracted

Mr Short, who is studying at Manchester University, was on holiday with six friends and was due to fly home today. Instead he will stay in hospital until Tuesday to ensure his 'horn-sized puncture wound' does not become infected.

A Spanish man, Daniel Jimeno Romero, 27, from Madrid, was gored to death in the same incident and eight other people were injured.

Speaking from his bed in the Virgen del Camino Hospital, Mr Short, 20, from Watford, told how he was attacked by the creature after becoming separated from his friends and finding himself unable to flee.

He said: 'One of the bulls decided to go the wrong way and everyone was trying to get out of the way. I saw people running the wrong way and realised something was really wrong.

'But I couldn't jump over the barrier fast enough and the bull gored me in my left leg and then flipped me and landed me on the ground. I hit my head and blacked out but then I must have come round because I managed to run to the side.

'A lad next to me grabbed the bull by its head but he was gored too.'

Risky business: A bull runner is gored in the back

He said: 'I can't believe what happened, and that the bull chose me over umpteen other people to gore. But it was all so fast and you're so pumped up with adrenalin, I didn't feel a thing - no pain whatsoever. I'm surprisingly OK now as well, just a little bit sore.'

Mr Romero died almost instantly after being gored in the neck - the first fatality in nearly 15 years at Pamplona's running of the bulls.
 

He was killed as he scurried for cover under a wooden barrier, sliding under it feet-first. Had Mr Romero dived headfirst, the experienced bull runner and son of a Pamplona native would probably still be alive.

The runnings went wrong yesterday after Capuchino did one of the most dangerous things - straying from the pack, spooking and charging at anything that moved.

A minute of silence was to be observed today in memory of Mr Romero from Alcala de Henares, a town outside Madrid.

On the social networking site Netlog, where condolences were being posted yesterday, he described himself as a glassmaker who loves soccer and snowboarding.

But despite his death, the 15th since record keeping began in 1924, the festival continued.
 

Fatality: Funeral personnel carry the coffin of Daniel Jimeno Romero, 27, after he was gored in the neck by a charging bull at the San Fermin Festival

Duck: A bull leaps over crouching 'mozos' yesterday

A packed running of the bulls this morning left three people with minor injuries but no one was gored.
 

One man had a lucky escape when he confronted a lone bull that had broken away from the pack after a fall but he was only rolled around the ground and not caught by its pointed horns.

The running of the bulls - made famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel 'The Sun Also Rises' - has never been suspended just because someone has died in the mad, half-mile dash from a holding pen to the city's bull ring.

There, the same six bulls that run in the cool of the morning over cobblestone streets face off against matadors and the prospect of almost certain death in the afternoon.
 

Ironically, on Friday, Capuchino was scheduled to go first.

Friday's run got ugly quickly. Capuchino was running at the head of the pack at a hill leading up from the holding pen.
 

The bulls go very fast at that point because their front legs are shorter than their hind ones, allowing them to run better on an incline than on level ground. Herders with sticks chased them, to keep them going.

But 1,130lbs Capuchino, about 200lbs lighter than the biggest of the group, tripped over some runners and ended up lagging behind.

The bulls run with six steers meant to keep them in a tight pack, and tend to mind their own business as long as they stay together. But a bull that gets separated is more likely to get frightened and aggressive, and that is what happened Friday, leading to chaos.

Chaos: Medical teams attend to runners wounded on the fourth day of the running of the bulls at Pamplona.

Brush with death: A runner is tossed by a Jandilla fighting bull

'As the bull approached, it attacked runners seeking refuge at the fence,' said Roberto Sanz, 43, a veteran Pamplona runner who was near Mr Romero when he died but did not witness it.

Amateur video footage shows Mr Romero, wearing white pants and a brown-and-white striped shirt, trotting backward as he faced the oncoming bull and stumbling when other runners go down.
 

He tried to squeeze under the fence, and was halfway there, when Capuchino caught him with a single swipe of his right horn.

The Spaniard began bleeding profusely and was tended to quickly by medics as he lay with his eyes half open.

Later, when Capuchino reached a stretch right outside the bullring, he started charging right and left, and ran back the wrong way several times.
 

Runners sprinted to wooden barriers along the route for safety as the bull attacked. Herders tried in vain to guide it into the ring, yanking on the animal's tail to turn it around.

This went on for a minute and a half, which is an eternity at the San Fermin festival. Fast runs - the whole sprint - can end in just over two minutes.

At one point the bull picked one Mr Short and flipped him into the air as if he were a toy, then kept going after him as he lay curled up on the ground, covering his face. He got up and ran away.

'It was a light bull. Its charges were not particularly strong but it moved very fast from left to right,' one of the bull herders, Humberto Miguel said. 'Of the whole pack, it was the one that gave us the most trouble.'

The bulls used in Friday's run, from a ranch called Jandilla, have a reputation for being fierce at San Fermin. They hold the record for the most gorings in a single run - eight, one day in 2004.

The last fatal goring at the running of the bulls was that of 22-year-old American Matthew Tassio in 1995. Then, the problem was not a stray bull but a fatal mistake by Tassio: after falling, rather than stay on the ground and wait for the pack to pass over, he stood up and faced the animals. A bull's horn hit him right in the chest.

In 2003, a 63-year-old Spanish man, Fermin Etxeberri, was trampled in the head by a bull and died after spending months in a coma.

Fatalities are relatively rare and when one occurs, it serves as a reminder that amid all the street parties and revelry associated with San Fermin, running with fighting bulls is a life-risking exercise.
UNQUOTE
Some you win. Some you lose. The bull always loses but he does not know that.

 

Two for the price of one.
 

 

It is all good fun for the bull.

 

The lad is not going to forget this in a hurry, assuming he lives to tell the tale.

 

He will need a new pair of trousers and a trip to his doctor.

 

Even professionals come unstuck. The bull is not very happy either.

 

Going in over the horns to kill works - usually. This time it was different.

 

This lad can see the fun of it. He has bottle.

 

And these have learned to climb fast.

 

The bull is winning here.

 

This is a Chinaman or Jap I fancy.

 

Thrown or jumping? Involved at all events.

 

The horns on this one have been doctored to make him safe.

 

He is still getting stuck in though.

 

The same beast?

 

This one is for real.

 

When they move it is not slow.

 

This matador is never going to be the same again.

 

That is one leg wound.

 

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

 

One down, plenty more to go.

 

 

 

Today we will play squash. I will be on top.

 

Having fun Señor?

 

This could get nasty.

More like this are at http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/f10/bulls-gettin-revenge-24761/. Photos like this mean getting real close, closer than I was ever going to get.

 

http://stupid-ideas.blogspot.com/2006/08/bullfighting-dangerous-sport.html

 

Is that a woman with a problem? She won't be trying that again.