How many deaths from bullfighting

Meanwhile, in the San Fermin bull running festival in Pamplona on Saturday, a year-old Japanese man was gored in the chest and a Spanish man in the arm.

Another 12 people were injured, the regional government in Pamplona said. How dangerous is bullfighting? In pictures: The last bullring. Image source, Reuters. The bull fight was being broadcast live on television. Image source, EPA. Related Topics. In October , Juan Jose Padilla was blinded in one eye by a horn. He was back six months later. Worldwide, the last matador to die was Colombian Jose Eslava Caceres, who was trapped against boards at the edge of the ring in , and suffered a fatal piercing of the lung.

While the matador is there by choice, the bull is not. It dies every time, apart from rare occasions where both bull and matador perform exceptionally well.

In these cases, the bull's life is spared. Image source, AP. One of the most famous matadors of all times, Juan Belmonte, is believed to have suffered over 24 major injuries as well as many more minor ones.

The bullfighter, a close friend of author Ernest Hemingway , was terribly injured during his career that he was eventually told by his doctor that he could no longer ride a horse, smoke cigars, sleep with women or drink wine.

It is believed that after hearing this news he was known to have ridden a horse to his countryside home, drank wine and slept with two ladies of the night before shooting himself with a pistol. Following the latest incident, defenders of the sport and those who decry it as barbaric clashed furiously on social media, with many claiming that the matador suffered the fate he deserved for participating in the bullfights.

However long it takes before the next human life is claimed in the ring, one thing is sure: the sport remains highly divisive in Spain and continues to draw as much criticism as it does support.

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