Jim Lawley

Why Spaniards keep being killed by bulls

(Photo: Getty)

A 57-year-old man was gored and killed during the bull running through the streets of Vall d’Uixo (population 31,000) in Spain last weekend. It was the third goring in three days in the town. In 2023 a total of eight people were killed by bulls in Spain during such events; the year before 23 died. 

In 2023 more than a thousand people in the Valencia region required medical treatment after being trampled or gored

While in a formal bullfight it is the matador (literally ‘killer’) who almost invariably emerges victorious, in the streets the aggressive, astonishingly fast, half-ton bull sweeps all before it. The dangers were well illustrated a few years ago by dramatic footage on national television showing a bull swerving off a village street, crashing through the front door of a house and surprising a family in their dining room. Fortunately on that occasion no one was hurt but a great deal of furniture and crockery was smashed.

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