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Pamplona Bull Run Scores 3 Gored Daredevils — Injuries Sustained In Armpit, Back, Perineum [Video]

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 01:46 PST, Jul 7, 2015

If you want to do a bull run properly, you need the most ferocious bulls you can find. In Pamplona, they’re found at the Jandilla ranch in rural western Spain. Clearly, the six picked to dash through the city’s picturesque streets this year were perfect — they gored 3 people Tuesday in only two minutes.

All victims are fine, despite being violently stabbed with a horn. According to the Independent, they include two Americans and one Briton. Their injuries vary according to which news agency is doing the reporting, however.

The Americans are reportedly 38 and 27, the Associated Press reported. The former was hurt in the armpit, the latter in the back. The Briton seems to have gotten the worst of it — the 30-year-old was reported to have been pierced in the “groin area” by the AP, and the perineum by Sky News. The Independent reported a different account of the injuries: the men injured in the chest, back, and armpit.

Texan Peter Remington witnessed someone being gored and described the sight to Sky News.

“This one was very crazy, very fast. I … at La Curva. One brown bull had a guy by his pants and was dragging him down the street right by the curve. It was very dangerous.”

All of the victims are reportedly going to recover. Miraculously, a horn to the perineum, armpit, and back somehow managed not to cause serious damage.

If three gored men wasn’t enough, three more Americans were bruised and battered and seven more quite beat up during the run, which covers an 850-meter stretch for a terrifying couple minutes, while daredevils in red scarves sprint like mad through Pamplona’s narrow streets.

Another American, a 40-year vet of the festival, Larry Belcher, said this year’s event was “really nasty.”

“(One) hooked a kid beside down on the curve. I’m not sure whether he took a horn wound or whether he was just rolled around on the cobblestones. I’m not sure. I’m just glad it’s over and now we can just settle down and seriously try to run.”

The race starts at a holding pen and ends at the bull ring, where the animals are killed in bullfights by pro matadors. The Pamplona festivities are part of the nine-day San Fermin festival, but runs like this one are common all across Spain. San Fermin earned its fame, and international participants, from its depiction in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.

Injuries are also a common feature of the Spanish bull run. Two men died in such events in Spain recently — one Saturday and another last month.

Since 1924, 15 people have been gored to death at such events. The last one was in 2009, which makes these latest victims incredibly lucky, indeed.

[Photo Courtesy of Twitter]

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