Alex Trelinski
PAMPLONA’S famous bull-running festival starts on Friday(July 7) and continues until July 14 in the streets of the northern city which is the capital of the Navarra region.
Every day at 8.00am six fighting bulls along with four oxen run the 825 metres route from the Corrales de Santo Domingo to Pamplona’s Plaza de Toros.
An estimated one million spectators will watch thousands of people run with the bulls over the eight days of the San Fermin Festival.
Runners are ticketed and strictly limited to 3,000 per day and contrary to popular belief, most of the injuries are caused by other humans involved in trampling rather any incidents with a bull.
Since records started being kept in 1910, 15 people have been killed during the runs- mainly as a result of goring.
The last non-Spaniard to die from a goring was an American tourist aged 22 in 1995.
200 people, mainly from the Cruz Roja, provide medical services every 50 metres down the route with 20 ambulances on stand-by which can take somebody to hospital in less than ten minutes.
With the sheer number of people wanting to get a street-side view, watching from a balcony is regarded as the safest option!
The event dates back to the 13th century tradition of transferring bulls from fields outside Pamplona to the bullring where they would be killed in the evening.
During that era, youths would jump among them in a display of bravado.
