A man from Valencia died today after being gored in a late-night bull run near the southern Spanish town of Alicante, while two men were gored and 12 others injured in the more popular morning bull-run race in Pamplona.
The deadly goring occurred about 1 AM during festivities at the small village of Pedreguera, where the Red Cross said the heifer gored the 29-year-old man through the thorax and abdomen. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital and pronounced dead an hour later.
The town suspended all bull-related festivities for the day.
At the famed San Fermin festival, the bull run was unusually long today, with one bull left stranded at the starting gate, where he proceeded to charge and strike a couple of runners. Many other participants fell and were stampeded by the head of the pack in the 850-meter race.
Another of the six bulls in the run got separated from the pack early in the race, did a U-turn and gored a nearby runner, lifting his body off the ground and flipping him over. A government statement said a 33-year-old Japanese man and a 24-year-old Spaniard were gored. The Navarra hospital said one of them had suffered a thorax wound.
The regional government said a dozen others were also taken to city hospitals for trauma care, including a 37-year- old from Barcelona and another 33-year-old Japanese man.
More than 1,000 people took part in the run, which lasted just over four minutes, about 1 and a half times longer than usual.
Meanwhile, a judge in Pamplona today ordered five men accused of sexually assaulting a woman Thursday during the festival to be jailed without bail. The assault had triggered protests in Pamplona.
Bull runs are a traditional part of summer festivals across Spain. The nine-day San Fermin fiesta became world famous with Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" and attracts thousands of foreign tourists each year.
Ten people, including four Americans, were gored at the San Fermin festival last year. In all, 15 people have died from gorings at the festival since record-keeping began in 1924.
