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Bull gores man to death in Spain

Other News Materials 10 July 2009 15:44 (UTC +04:00)

A young Spanish man has been gored to death in the traditional running of the bulls in Pamplona, northern Spain, BBC reported.

The 27-year-old was gored in the neck on Friday, during the fourth bull run of the week-long San Fermin festival.

Daniel Jimeno Romero, from Madrid, had emergency surgery in hospital but died of his injuries. Earlier reports had described the dead man as British.

Three other runners were injured by the rogue bull on Friday. The last fatal goring at the festival was in 1995.

A light-brown bull called Capuchino ploughed into a group of runners and spectators on Friday after getting separated from the main pack.

The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid says the running of the bulls - opposed by animal rights activists - is a defining event in Spanish culture.

Popularised by the writer Ernest Hemingway, it attracts thousands of foreign tourists each year - many of whom choose to take part.

Friday's incident happened close to the start of the 850-metre (2,805ft) run through the streets of Pamplona.

Television footage showed runners fleeing a rogue bull and jumping over the wooden barriers in one of the cobbled streets. The bull tossed one man into the air and then gored him as he lay curled on the ground.

Fellow runners tried to beat the bull off by pulling on its tail and hitting it with sticks.

Fifteen people have died from injuries at the Pamplona fiesta since 1922.

Before Friday's fatality two North Americans were gored to death - in 1980 and 1995 - and a veteran Spanish bull-runner died after a fall in 2003, Spain's El Mundo news website reports.

The festival was made world-famous by Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

Clad in white, with a red kerchief, tourists and Spaniards sprint ahead of the charging bulls, which face matadors in the bullring later in the day.

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