27 injured in first 4 days of running with the bulls

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Seven people, including an American, were hurt Thursday during the fourth day of the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, medical authorities told the Pamplona Press Association.

A bull gored a 28-year-old Spanish man in the thigh, and a 31-year-old American suffered a head injury from a fall or collision that temporarily left him unconscious, authorities said.

Those two runners and five Spaniards were taken to Pamplona hospitals, mostly with injuries from falls or collisions.

Twenty-seven people have been injured in the first four days of the running, including three who were gored, according to a CNN tally based on official medical reports published first by the press association and later by the regional government of Navarra.

The regional government has designated the press association to collect and distribute information about people who are injured during the running.

Sixteen of the injured are Spaniards. The others include four Americans and one each from England, Australia, New Zealand, Greece, South Africa, South Korea, and Romania, authorities said.

On Wednesday, Marcus Wolf, 22, of Bakersfield, California, was gored in the abdomen, according to The Associated Press.

Wolf was taken to a hospital and was "stable and conscious," said Dr. Ignacio Yurss, medical director of Hospital de Navarra.

Yurss told Spanish state television that a 20-year-old Greek man was injured in the nose.

Three people have been gored by bulls this week while the other injuries resulted from falls or collisions, the regional government of Navarra reported.

The running of the bulls in Pamplona started 400 years ago and became popular worldwide after author Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in the 1920s.

The running is held for eight consecutive days, July 7 to 14, as six bulls and a pack of tame steers run from the corrals through Pamplona's old town to the bull ring, where the bulls will die later in the day in a bullfight.

The running lasts only a few minutes, starting promptly at 8 a.m. (2 a.m. ET) each day with a few thousand runners, although crowds swell considerably on the weekend.

A total of 13 people have been killed in the runs since 1924, when record-keeping began. The last was a 22-year-old American gored to death in 1995


"Whats that saying? You mess with the bull you'll get the horns? Apparently none of these people have heard it."