If you're going to contribute to an e-book titled "Fiesta: How to Survive the Bulls of Pamplona" you might want to avoid, well, being gored by the bulls of Pamplona.
Chicago author "Buffalo" Bill Hillmann, who wrote a chapter in the 2014 book giving advice on running with the bulls, was gored Wednesday by a loose bull during Pamplona's famous San Fermín bull-running fiesta.
Sanfermin.com writes that Hillmann, an experienced runner, ran into trouble when he was tripped and fell to the ground. It was then that he was gored not once but twice by the bull in his right leg.
But, as bad as the word "goring" sounds, Hillmann will be fine.
He was visited in the hospital by friend and fellow contributor to the bull-running book, Alexander Fiske-Harrison, who wrote in his blog that: "He is in surgery now, but seemed okay, indeed happy given the amount of pain killers he was on. ... the bull’s horn went through his right thigh, but missed the artery and it seems the bone as well." (Via YouTube / Sergio GarrigaRiu)
While injuries aren't uncommon during the San Fermin festival, deaths are more rare with only 15 occurring since 1910. (Via The Telegraph)
The most recent death occurred in 2009 when Daniel Jimeno Romero was gored in the neck and lungs in the final stretch of the run. (Via BBC)
Slate took a look at the types of injuries one could face while running with the bulls in 2010 and cited a study saying that 66% of bullfighting injuries occur in the extremities with about 8% occurring around the groin.
For Hillmann, things could have been much worse. He told the Chicago Tribune in a phone interview that “[The doctors] said it was a centimeter away from my femoral artery and if it had hit that artery I would have died.”
