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  Pamplona Fatality: Bull Run Claims First Victim in 14 Years

Pamplona Fatality Bull Run Claims First Victim in 14 Years

A man was gored to death on Friday while taking part in the famous bull run in Pamplona. The tragedy occured when one bull became separated from the pack and began attacking runners.

It was the first fatality to mar Pamplona's famous running with the bulls in 14 years. On Friday a man was gored to death in an attack by a rogue bull. Nine others were injured during the incident at the San Fermin festival when one of the animals separated from the pack and veered into a group of runners.

The unidentified man was gored in the neck and lung and died of his injuries. "He is dead. He had been hit by a horn that punctured his lung," a spokesman for the San Fermin organizers told the news agency AFP. Three others were also gored while the other six people only had minor injuries, the director of the Virgen del Camino Hospital told reporters.

Friday's death raises the toll to 15 since records began in 1924. The last fatality was in 1995 when the run claimed the life of 22-year-old American Matthew Tassio.

The nine-day fiesta with its bull run, made famous in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises," attracts hundreds of tourists from around the world. The thrill-seekers gather in the early morning to sprint through the town's narrow streets in front of bulls heading towards the bull ring where they face matadors in the afternoon. The animals tend to stick together in a pack and keep running. However if a bull gets separated from the others it can become nervous and aggressive -- which is apparently what happened on Friday morning.

When one bull, named Cappuccino, fell and ended up on its own, it started charging left and right and then ran back the wrong way several times. Runners tried to escape the rampaging bull by heading for the safety of wooden barriers.

The bull picked up one man by the horns and flipped him in the air and then kept trying to gore him as he lay curled up on the ground. Other runners tried to distract the bull by pulling on his tail and hitting it with sticks. The man who was flipped into the air got away without serious injuries, the Associated Press reported. It was not clear if Cappuccino was the bull who gored the man to death.

Friday's run was the fourth since this year's festival opened. There were no serious injuries during the other three runs.

smd -- with wire reports

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