Two seriously injured at Pamplona bull-running festival

Jul 12, 2009, 12:44 GMT

   Pamplona - Two men were seriously injured Sunday at the annual bull-running festival in the Spanish city of Pamplona - 48 hours after a man was gored to death at the event.

A 44-year old local was gored twice, in the chest and thigh, by a 575-kilogramme bull named Ermitano, emergency services said.

Another 56-year old Spanish man was gored in the neck by a bull.

A total of 113 people have been injured in this year's event, although only 17 have required hospital treatment.

The 44-year old, who has not yet been named, was tossed high in the air by the bull. Doctors at hospital where he was being treated described him as being in a 'very serious, but no longer critical' condition.

On Friday 27-year old Daniel Jimeno was fatally gored by a bull, whose horns punctured his neck and lung.

That was the first death at the festival since 2003.

   The death was attributed to a bull named Capuchino, which also injured three other participants, including a 24-year-old Argentinian.

   At the festival, which runs until July 14, each morning six bulls are released to run from their corral through the narrow streets of the city to the bullfighting arena. Traditionally hundreds of young men run in front of the bulls, with a rolled-up newspaper as their only permitted defence from the animals' horns.

   In 2003 a 62-year-old Spanish man died in the event after a fall.

Capuchino, the bull blamed for the death of Jimeno, died later Friday in a bullfight in the Pamplona arena. A minute's silence was held for Jimeno, whose family will receive 30,005 euros (41,800 dollars) in compensation.

According to his family, Jimeno was an experienced bull-runner who had taken part in the event for the past seven years.