A 20-year-old man who was gored by a bull on Saturday, Sept. 7, during the running of the bulls in El Casar (Guadalajara) died on Sunday in the Hospital Universitario La Paz in Madrid.
The victim died after a running bull drove its horn through his chest and punctured his lung during the bull-running festival – a long-held Spanish tradition to celebrate the town's patron saint.
The injured individual was initially taken in a mobile intensive care ambulance to the University Hospital of Guadalajara but was later transferred to the hospital in Madrid given the extent of his injuries. He succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.
Second Bull-Running Death in a Month
Bull-run deaths are rare, but this one is the second such death to have hit the town in a month, with another man, aged 51, having died at the end of August in another bull run held in Mesones, a district belonging to El Casar, when he slipped on a fence while trying to escape from the bulls. In total, 16 people have died during Spanish bull runs since record keeping began in the 20th century.
Town Declares Three Days of Mourning
On Sunday, the town hall in El Casar decreed three days of official mourning following the man's death.
"We deeply regret the unfortunate accident that occurred during the bullfighting festivities in the patron saint's fiestas and as a sign of mourning we have decided to lower the flags flying outside the municipal buildings at half-mast, to pin a black ribbon on the flags located inside the municipal buildings and to suspend all official public events organised by the El Casar Town Hall for the duration of the official mourning", said the mayor of the town, José Luis González Lamola, in a statement obtained by local news outlet SUR.
