25-Year-Old American Among 3 Gored During Spain's Bull-Running Festival

A 25-year-old American was among the three people who were gored during the fifth bull run at San Fermín Festival in Pamplona, Spain, Monday.

The three gorings were the first ones to occur at the festival since it kicked off last week.

Local officials only identified the man, who hails from Sunshine, Florida, by the initials M.T., the New York Post reported.

A bull's horn completely pierced through M.T.'s lower left leg in the city's bullring. The man was trapped against a fence along with other runners, some of whom were tossed around by the animal.

M.T. and the other runners eventually managed to get to safety by jumping onto the other side of the fence.

The two other gored runners were 29-year-olds from Spain. One was gored in the groin while the other was gored in the knee, the Navarra regional government said. Three other runners also received treatment for injuries sustained from falling during the roughly three-minute run.

Nobody was reported to be in serious condition following Monday's tense run. Three more daily runs will take place before the festival comes to an end Thursday.

The controversial festival sees thrill-seekers from around the world flock to Spain and join the locals in frantically running alongside fighting bulls that charge toward them in the streets of Pamplona.

Scotch Snider, from Austin, Texas, is among the thousands of festival-goers this year.

"Hell yes, I was afraid, man," the 50-year-old told CBS News. "There's a lot of fear coursing through my blood but now I feel relieved and I'm going to get drunk."

"We are just hoping to do a good job and not be one of those dumb foreigners that messes it up," Don Story, another American festival-goer, told the outlet.

After the chaotic race on the street, the run ends in the city's bullring, where professional bullfighters kill the animals later in the day. Animal rights activists say it is the bulls that suffer the most during the centuries-old tradition.

Activists protested against the festival, which resumed this year following a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chelsea Monroe, senior digital campaigns officer at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said the bulls suffer over 20 minutes of torture.

"Bullfighting is the long ritualized execution of bulls and many tourists who come to the bull-runs don’t actually realize that the same bulls they’re running down a couple of streets with are later killed in the bullring that day," Monroe said, according to AP News.

"They're stabbed over and over again for 20 minutes until they're dead," she added. "We want the tourists to know that their money is supporting this really cruel industry."