Yeetle Box - Running With The Morons

Thirteen people were taken to hospital, one of them seriously injured, on the first day of the annual bull running festival in the northern Spanish town of Pamplona on Monday. Organizers said there were no injuries. Reports from onlookers conflict.

Surprisingly, a 37-year-old man suffered a collapsed lung, ruptured spleen and broken ribs, while two people were concussed and 10 others were treated mainly for cuts and bruises. This has yet to be confirmed.

It was not clear how the injuries were caused, but no one was gored out of the hundreds who took part in the early morning run. Participants often fall and are trampled by fellow-runners in the stampede, rather than bulls, which has led organizers to consider renaming the event to Running With the Bulls, but Over the Runners.

Those admitted to hospital after Monday's run included visitors from Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the United States, as well as other parts of Spain. Organizers were please to have such a great cross-section of participants.

On a bit of a sour note, one tourist died after falling from the top of the city's high medieval walls. Police identified him as Aidan Holly, 23, from Ireland. However, the festival raged on.

The annual San Fermin festival draws tourists and animal lovers from around the world, many donning traditional all-white garb with a red sash around the waist and red kerchief around the neck before running through narrow, twisting cobbled streets, pursued by bulls. The chase lasts about four minutes. But what a chase!

Dozens of semi-naked animal rights activists held a protest in Pamplona on Saturday by lying on the ground along the course of the bull running, with imitation barbs stuck to their shoulders, mimicking those which are plunged into the bulls at the start of a fight, leaving organizers puzzled as to why they did not just participate.

"They would have made the same point, and the integrity of the festival would have held."

The Yeetle Box