Photographies: Maite H. Mateo
This second Running of the Bulls of Sanfermin 2016 had many long moments of high tension and danger. The Cebada Gago bulls made lots of charges at the runners and there were many situations that could have produced authentic tragedies. As TV commentator, Javier Solano from the national TVE, stated the craziest thing of all is the fact that there were so few gorings, when there could have been 15 instead of the 5 that actually occurred.
The first real dangerous moment occurred in Mercaderes street, and it was the first sign of worse to come. It happened just outside the Kukuxumusu store, just a few meters from the corner of Estafeta street. A brown-colored bull turned suddenly aside and stared straight at a runner who had tripped up and fallen down. The bull charged at the fallen runner and tossed him as can be seen in this sequence of photos, captured by the camera of Maite H. Mateo.
The runner was tossed twice by the bull. The second tossing was the worst as the runner fell to the ground in a bad posture which could have injured him badly. However, he did not receive any goring. Perhaps the figure of San Fermín which had been recently painted by Kukuxumusu on the door of their store just a few weeks ago cast a helping hand to the lucky runner and left him with just some bruises.