Six people were injured in the last San Fermin bullfight in Pamplona (northern Spain) on Friday, bringing the total number of injured to 35 at the 2023 edition of this festival that attracts tourists from all over the world.
The final run, which lasted just over two minutes, resulted in “five transfers” to the hospital, but none were due to bloodshed, a spokeswoman for the University of Navarra hospital said.
Of the injured who were taken to the hospital, two had an “unconditional prognosis,” she added, one “with a chest contusion” and the other with a “head injury,” Marta Martín said.
According to the Red Cross, a sixth runner was treated in the infirmary of the Pamplona bullring.
A total of 35 people were injured this year, but none of them are in serious condition. The most spectacular injury is that of a 58-year-old Dutchman who suffered a slight cut in his scrotum from a horn blow.
During the San Fermin celebrations, held July 6-15 each year, hundreds of brave runners wearing a white shirt or t-shirt and a red scarf attempt to run at 8 a.m. (6 a.m GMT). to get as close as possible to six fighting bulls in an 850-meter race through the city’s narrow cobblestone streets to the bullring.
Immortalized by Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, these festivals attract tourists from all over the world.
The release of bulls (“encierros”) causes dozens of injuries and sometimes deaths there every year.
At least 16 runners have died since 1911, when data collection began. The last fatality was in 2009, when a 27-year-old Spaniard was gored by a bull.