Today is the tenth anniversary of the running of the bulls when the experienced runner, Fermin Etxeberria Irañeta, suffered a mortal knock over from the Cebada Gago bulls. Fermin was a habitual runner ever since he first began at the age of 14. “Castillero” was the name of the bull that knocked him violently to the ground on the Mercaderes stretch and he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury from which he died four months later.
At the age of 63, this expert runner was admitted to hospital on the 8th of July, 2003 and taken to The Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital of Navarra, where he remained in coma and connected to a machine until the last week of September. He died on the 24th of September in the San Juan de Dios de Pamplona clinic after being hospitalized for two and a half months.
