Posted
on July 7, 2015
This
just seems nuts to me:
Running
in front of six huge (up to 1,1600 pounds!) bulls with long, sharp
horns – plus nine other steers, and thousands of other people –
within the narrow streets of Pamplona.
Most
of the 20,000 + people who run with the bulls in Pamplona each year are young men. Two-thirds of last year's participants had never done
it before – apparently, it is an experience most don't choose to
repeat. And more than half of last year's runners were not Spaniards,
but were rather foreigners / thrill-tourists.
There
are some safety measures: You can't run with the bulls if you are
under 18 or if you have been drinking alcohol. Also, participants
must run the same direction as the bulls and are forbidden to
“incite” the bulls.
There
are double fences, and the spectators have to stand behind the second
set of fences. The space between the first and second set of fences
is a place where the runners can get away from the bulls, if they
need to, and is also the place where about 200 volunteers, including
nurses and doctors, lurk, ready to treat minor injuries or stabilize
patients with more dangerous injuries before putting them into the
nearby ambulances to be transported to a hospital.
Runners
face the is danger of being stepped on or smashed against fences or
buildings, by either bulls or other runners. Of course the biggest
danger is being gored by a bull's horns. Most injuries are minor;
there are from 200 to 300 injuries each year, but in more than a
century (ever since records have been kept), only 15 people have died
from bull running in Pamplona.
By
the way, today's morning run isn't the only one in Pamplona this year
– bull running happens every morning for a week!
Many
animal rights activists are against the Running of the Bulls. Of
course, the bulls are running to their doom, because at the end of
the run, they will face matadors in a bullring, and the bullfight
will almost certainly end in the bulls' deaths.
 |
| We saw these signs of the toro, considered an important symbol of Spain, everywhere when we traveled through Spain last summer! |
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