My World Earth News: spanish.festivals

Monday, April 26, 2010

Bullfight audience asked to give blood to gored Spanish matador... who needed 17-pint transfusion

Stricken: The popular matador needed 17 pints of blood and doctors operated at the bullring without anaesthetic

Critical: Spanish matador Jose Tomas is gored in the groin during a national fair in Aguascalientes, Mexico

Transfusion: Doctors asked members of the crowd to donate A type blood to help Mr Tomas

One of Spain's leading matadors was seriously injured in Mexico when a one ton bull gored him in the groin and hurled him into the air, his manager said yesterday.

Jose Tomas received an emergency transfusion of 17 pints of blood after he was gored by a bull named Navegante in the Mexican city of Aguascalientes.

The bull's horn punctured a vein and an artery, manager Salvador Boix told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser.
Mr Tomas, one of Spain's most popular matadors, has a relatively rare blood type - A - and bled so heavily that bullring officials appealed over the arena loudspeakers for compatible donors.

Doctors operated on the 34-year-old immediately to stabilise him, and he underwent three hours more surgery at a hospital later on.

Mr Boix said: 'Now he has new blood and is in intensive care, waiting to see how things evolve.'

Mexican television footage shows the matador working the animal with his cape, when it makes a quick turn and catches him in the groin, lifting him into the air for several seconds and shaking its head with the stricken matador suspended from its left horn.

Spanish newspaper El Pais said his injury was so serious that doctors did not even taken time to anaesthetise him.

Mr Tomas is known for a daring bullfighting style in which he gets particularly close to the bull.

In 2002, at the peak of his career, he suddenly retired without saying why

But in 2007 he returned to the bull ring, and told one interviewer 'living without bullfighting is not living'. Since his return, he has suffered a number of serious injuries in Spain.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Rider charges through flames in 500-year-old Spanish festival

Leaping through the raging flames, these dramatic pictures show a rider taking part in a spectacular tradition.

As dusk falls, the streets are illuminated and filled with smoke as scores of fires are lit and the villagers of San Bartolome de Pinares in Spain prepare to celebrate the feast of St Anthony.

Every year, in a tradition dating back 500 years, the 700 male and female inhabitants collect piles of branches and gather to honour their patron saint of animals.
The creatures are blessed by a priest with holy water, before the brave horsemen lead their equally courageous mounts around the village, leaping through bonfires as sparks fly in all directions.

The tradition, dating back to the 16th century, is said to purify and protect the animals of the remote village, 60 miles west of Madrid.

As the riders jump across the flames, musicians fill the air with the sound of drums and Spanish bagpipes. The riding stops at 11.30pm, but the festivities continue until dawn, when the bonfires are converted into huge barbecues to cook a traditional feast of chorizo sausages and black pudding.

Egyptian-born St Anthony Abad has been acknowledged since the Middle Ages as the patron saint of domesticated animals.

The festival starts on the eve of his saint's day, which falls on January 17, and the villagers believe their mules, donkeys and horses are protected by St Anthony throughout the year because of the festival.

Recently, the fiesta has been criticised by animal rights activists who claim it is cruel, but organisers insist the horses come to no harm.

The festival starts on the eve of his saint's day, which falls on January 17, and the villagers believe their mules, donkeys and horses are protected by St Anthony throughout the year because of the festival

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