Injuries mount in final bull run
From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- A 43-year-old Spanish man was gored in the buttocks on the final day of the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, in what has been one of the most dangerous years in recent memory, a Navarra regional government statement said.
The final toll for this year stands at 16 people gored and another 40 individuals sent to hospital with non-goring injuries from falls or being trampled, in the eight-day running from July 7 to 14.
Javier Solano, the veteran play-by-play announcer for Spanish state television's live daily broadcasts of the running, said on air on Wednesday that the 16 people gored this year - including eight people on July 12 alone - was about twice the number of people gored most years.
The name of the Spaniard gored Wednesday was not immediately released.
He was described as a veteran runner, but suffered a 4-inch (10 cm) gash from the goring, and a head injury from a collision, in the Santo Domingo uphill section of the course soon after the bulls were released from the corral.
In addition, an American, Jorge Garrandes Gonzalez, 51, from Miami, went to hospital on Wednesday with a non-goring injury to the right knee, as well as two men from Pamplona who were also hospitalized with non-goring injuries.
The total of 56 runners sent to hospital this year included nine Americans, an Australian, a Frenchman, a South African, someone from Portugal and numerous Spaniards.
More than a dozen runners have been killed since early last century, when record-keeping began.
The running of the bulls in Pamplona started 400 years ago and became popular worldwide after Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in the 1920s.
