World

Bulls, Drunks, And Cobblestones

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 7, 2000 / 9:45 AM EDT / CBS

Important safety tip for running with 1,500-pound bulls bred to be quick, ornery and relentless: don't yell.

In fact, don't do anything that has even the slightest chance of distracting the hulking beasts which are the star attraction of Spain's most internationally known summer event, the San Fermin Festival.

Veterans of the half-mile course, which winds through narrow streets in Pamplona's old quarter, say that despite all the drinking and merriment that goes on for eight days, they take their running very seriously.

After all, 13 people have died at San Fermin since record-keeping started in 1924.

"This not a game," said Cesar Garro, a 29-year-old auto factory worker who has run in the last six festivals. "The streets belong to the bull."

They rule the streets for two or three minutes, if all goes well, starting at 8 a.m. sharp each morning for a week, as six fighting bulls are freed from a corral and rumble down a fenced route to a bullring where they will face matadors and certain death by afternoon.

At the opening run Friday, more than 20 people were slightly injured with various bumps and scratches. One of them was lucky - a woman who was knocked over by several bulls. After being hit, she lay on the ground with her arms covering her head, apparently oblivious to a huge brown straggler who had stopped to eye her from about two feet away. The bull eventually went on its way.

Many of the runners sport the traditional festival garb of white shirt, white pants, red bandanna and red sash around the waist.

Nearly all carry rolled up newspapers. One idea is that if a friend falls and a bull attacks, you throw the paper to the ground so it will unfurl and distract the bull. In fact, some foolhardy runners use the paper to tap bulls on the rump.

During the run, the animals are accompanied by steers which are supposed to serve as guides, keeping the bulls more or less in a cluster.

But many things can and do go wrong. Hoofs provide poor traction on cobblestone, so sometimes the bulls slip and fall, particularly at one rather sharp turn about midway through the run.

A fallen bull is even more dangerous. Separated from the herd, he gets up confused and may run in the wrong direction. Seeing nothing but people instead of fellow bulls, the toro can get nervous and charge.

Fighting bulls are amazingly agile for their size. In bullfights they sometimes leap over a 5-foot-tall wooden fence that surrounds the ring.

Making things worse, human thrill-seekers also fall at San Fermin. The festival has become so popular and the runs so crowded that, veterans say, half the trick is to be aware of who or what is nearby as you sprint, trying to see in all directions at once.

The presence of many novices among the estimated 2,000 people who take part in each run poses another risk. "I've seen people running with backpacks, or running while shooting video cameras," sad Garro.

He and other veterans insist that another important rule of San Fermin is that if you fall, don't get up. Curl up, cover your head with your arms and just hope you don't get trampled or gored, they say.

"If you get up, there's a 90 percent chance something will go wrong," said Inigo Etxeberria, 28.

He said the last person gored to death at San Fermin, Matthew Tassio, 22, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., made the mistake of getting up after he went down in front of the Pamplona town hall in 1995.

Even if they remain on their feet, runners can keep up with the bulls for only five or six seconds because the animals are so fast. Veterans compare the experience to merging into fast-moving traffic on a highway, then trying to get off quickly.

If you do it right, for a few Adrenalin-fueled seconds you're close enough to the bull to smell it, to hear its raspy pant. "It sounds like a locomotive engine," Etxeberria said.