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Sunday 12 July 2009

San Fermín: Blood and Culture

So the 6th "encierro" (which means running of bulls through the streets) of San Fermín, famous festivities in the city of Pamplona, north Spain, have left a trail of blood, ... as usual.
In this party, there are many "encierros" and people dress in white with a red scarf and run in front of the bulls. From time to time someone gets caught. This man in the photo, was caught and has serious injuries, the horn hit on his lungs, broke toracic tissue and broke a rib, plus he has a 15cm (5.9 inches) deep wound in his bum caused by the horn. He is in intensive care. Others have been hit as well, but not as bad as him.

Oh! Do you want to see how it happened? Then click here, and play the video.

What happened is that the group of bulls had a collision and ended a few on top of each other, then they kept running towards the bullring, but there was one of them that when it stood up it faced the wrong direction and was left alone as the other bulls kept running. His name is Ermitaño (Hermit), and he was looking confused, and as these bulls are trained to fight (that's why is called a "brave bull") that's what it does when he sees himself on his own surrounded by a crowd of people shouting, pulling his tail, and being hit with sticks. So this poor man was on the way... I think he's lucky he's alive, though. Actually is worth to say that these bulls are Miura bulls (also called the "Bulls of Death", because of their ferocity and because they are responsible of many bullfighters deaths)...

There's many people in Spain which doesn't agree with this culture of us of bullfighting, bull-bullying and blood culture. I am one of them. This issue is very commented, and many argue that the brave bull is trained for the fight, and if this tradition wouldn't exist, neither the brave bull would.

4 comments:

  1. On watching the footage andshed a tear (for the poor bull not the bull runner) even though I was shocked at what happened thats what happens when you play with dangers like this. Not sure what shocked me more the man being gorged or the crowd cheering and whistling!!. I only popped on to your site to review in on link referral and found myself engrossed...well done for a great page...

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  3. Thanks for passing by on first hand! Indeed the boys who are pulling the animal's tail are actually 'containing' the beast in order to complicate his impulse to attack other people... To be honest, this is nothing. Sometimes they put fireworks held in the horns in some festivities... like the Fallas of Valencia.

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  4. I'm sorry, my comment was a mistake :( I wanted to delete it, but I got no rights to do so. I'm really sorry.

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