Bull injures 3 men at Spanish festival

PAMPLONA, Spain — A bull broke from the pack and gored two Australians and a Spaniard during Sunday’s final bull run of this year’s San Fermin festival, health officials from the northern Spanish city of Pamplona said.

That raised the number of gorings to eight this year. The festival’s eight bull runs provide a high-adrenaline morning rush to the non-stop party that draws around 1 million people each year.

While five of the bulls stayed in a group Sunday and charged through the twisting streets with their guiding steers, one bull drifted back and provoked havoc in the crowds of runners. The bull flipped one man over its horns and slammed him onto the cobblestone street. It then clipped another two runners who were trapped against a wall.

Regional hospital spokesman Tomas Belzunegui said the man who had been tossed by the chocolate-colored bull named Rabanero was gored in the leg, while another man was gored in the right arm and a third in the armpit. The hospital said the wounds were not life-threatening.

The Red Cross reported several other injuries from knocks received from the bulls and steers, or from runners tumbling out of the way.

The previous seven bull runs had produced five gorings: three Spaniards and two Americans.

The six bulls from the Miura breeder, who celebrated the farm’s record-extending 53rd showing at the festival, completed the 930-yard run to the bull ring in 2 minutes, 42 seconds. They were to be killed at the ring in bullfights later Sunday.

The San Fermin fiesta was made famous internationally by Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. Most revelers stay up all night or rise early enough to spectate from balconies or barricades as hundreds of runners, all dressed in the traditional white outfit with a red sash, make their mad dash.

Sixteen people have died in the bull runs since 1910. The last death occurred in 2009.