This last week has been the nine-day “Running of the Bulls” festival in Pamplona, Spain. Each year this event is held, there are continual news stories of people suffering serious injuries or dying.

Those who participate in the centuries-old Running of the Bulls festival are basically thumbing their noses at death and injury. When I see a story about someone being gored by a bull, or injured in some other way, I cringe, but lack sympathy. What did that injured person expect?

The festival dates back to the 14th century and is connected to bull-fighting. Running with the bulls was a way to transport the bulls from the country, where they were raised, to the bull-fighting arena in the city, where they were to be killed in the ring. Needless to say, animal rights activists think this entire series of shenanigans are abhorrent.

The Running of the Bulls has turned into a major tourist event for the Pamplona region, as it brings about one million people to the area during the nine days the bulls run. The event includes a kilometer-long path from bull pens to the bull-fighting arena. Six bulls are released into the street along with some oxen. The oxen are there to help lead the bulls to the ring, but there are so many people taunting the bulls and trying to touch them that sometimes the bulls get turned around or stop in the street. The bulls will attack virtually anything within their eyesight, but there are so many targets, they become easily distracted.

Over the last few decades, the Running of the Bulls has expanded in scope and participation. The 1991 movie “City Slickers” opens with a scene of three friends from New York Running with the Bulls. The movie is a comedy, however, being gored or trampled by a bull is no laughing matter.

What is the attraction for those who choose to run with the bulls? Well, they’re taunting death, daring danger… As if there aren’t enough natural and otherwise unnatural threats to one’s life in this world, some people think it’s necessary to run through the narrow, stone streets of Pamplona with bulls.

What I know about bulls compared to the average farmer could probably fit in a thimble with some room to spare. That said, I know they are violent, deadly creatures which become enraged when taunted. Bulls are so frightening that the biggest event in rodeo is bull-riding — a sport that requires years of training to understand and is never mastered. Yet, in Pamplona, often those who’ve never been in contact with a farm, let-alone a bull, decide to go for a jog with these animals.

My father was born in North Prairie, Wisconsin, and when he was a young boy he remembers a neighbor’s bull escaped its enclosure and the fencing surrounding the farm where it was penned. The bull ended up on a state highway and it was both confused and enraged. The bull charged a Mack Truck — a 1950s Mack truck with it’s sold steel bumper, grille, and front-end housing. The bull repeatedly charged the truck until it literally knocked itself silly and ended up in what we would consider a sitting position with almost visible stars circling its head. The front of the truck was a mess.

I had a great uncle who kept a bull on his farm for breeding purposes. The bull was housed mainly in a reinforced wooden pen with one door that opened into a small circular fenced enclosure. The fence was made of heavy-gauge tubular steel and about seven feet high. I never saw the bull, as when our family visited, it was never let out of the pen. I did hear the bull regularly kick and thrash in the pen. That was scary enough.

Living in Wisconsin we hear of farm injuries and deaths that occur when people deal with livestock, especially bulls. Large farm animals can be dangerous in close quarters.

The Running of the Bulls festival isn’t filling up cemeteries. Since records started being kept on the festival in 1910, there have been 15 deaths among participants. However, countless others have been injured and the event maintains a daily emergency medical team of 200.

Many things we do for sport are dangerous. If you love something, you’re going to do it, and if that means taking on the dangers of injury, people are willing to take the risk.

When it comes to the Running of the Bulls festival, it is not a sport, but an event. Annual news of horrific injuries coming out of this should bring no shock or surprise. People who run along narrow stone streets with angry bulls are going to be injured. The percentage of those injured vs. the number of participants is narrow, but it’s hard to drum up sympathy for someone hurt doing something so inherently dangerous.

— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.