Briton gored in groin on last day of Pamplona bull run

A bull rammed his horns into the groin of a British tourist yesterday as 11 people were injured on the last day of the Pamplona festival in northern Spain, the regional government said.

The 24-year-old man from Yarm in northeastern England was in a “serious” condition in hospital during the eighth and final bull run of the festival.

He was one of four people who were struck by the horns of a bull while the rest were hurt in falls as they raced through the narrow cobbled streets of the city pursued by the animals, a government statement said.

Another foreigner, a 26-year-old man from New Zealand, slightly injured his wrist in a fall during the run which lasted a relatively long four minutes and 23 seconds.

Their injuries brought to 11 the number of foreigners who were injured during bull runs this year: four from Britain, two from Ireland and one each from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US.

The overall number of injured was 37.

The British embassy this year posted a warning telling Britons to seriously consider the risks if they join in the bull runs, which were immortalised by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

On each day of the festival six bulls are released at 8 a.m. to run from their corral over an 846-metre course to the bullring where they face matadors in the afternoon.

The bull runs have claimed 15 lives since 1911 and each year dozens of runners are injured.

The most recent death occurred last year when a bull gored a 27-year-old Spaniard to death, piercing his neck, heart and lungs with its horns in front of the hordes of tourists.