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CNN Live At Daybreak
Annual Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain
Aired July 08, 2002 - 05:47 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now to Pamplona, Spain where it's that time of year again when thousands of brave, some might say fool hearty, well they try their luck at the running of the bulls. The annual event dates back 400 years, but it's not getting any safer.
Joining us on the phone with more details is CNN's Al Goodman.
Good morning, Al.
AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning.
A very swift, brisk run through the streets of old Pamplona this morning on the second day of the running. The run took maybe three to four minutes. That's about how long it's supposed to take. The bulls came basically in a pack, whooshing right by our point along the barricades.
We hear of two injuries this day. One person gored, and we don't know the status of the other person. This in contrast to the first day of the running which was Sunday, yesterday, when the running took about nine minutes. The bulls got separated. There were more gorings, including a 19-year-old woman from Kansas who is listed in not serious condition we are being told by authorities.
So it is a very unusual, crazy event, and people just can't seem to stay away from it -- Carol.
COSTELLO: OK. So, Al, tell me again why people do this?
GOODMAN: There may be two parts to this. For the local people in Pamplona, it's a tradition. Bulls are part of their life. It's been going on for 400 years. We've talked to people, grandfathers, then fathers, then sons have run. It's passed down generation to generation.
But for people outside of Spain, especially Americans, and maybe 10,000 of them will be in Pamplona this week according to local authorities, they're driven here by perhaps Ernest Hemingway's novel, the 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" that gave this place a kind of irresistible allure. So they're trying their luck.
We've -- we talked to several people who were in the running today trying for the first time. They came out OK. I, myself, ran 13 years ago. I thought about running again today. But... COSTELLO: No, you ran, Al? Why?
GOODMAN: That's right, I did. I thought about running again today, but I decided to stay on the barricades. I have a wife and family now, Carol.
COSTELLO: That's just nuts. So explain this to me, do they set the bulls loose first or do the people start running and then the bulls are set loose and they chase them?
GOODMAN: There's a little bit of everything. But what you have is the bulls come out of this corral. It's a half-mile course. They're coming out of the corral. The bulls are trying to find the bull ring, which is at the other end of this street. And what they find in their way are these several thousand runners. And so things get very, very dicey very quickly.
The thing about being in the running shoot is that there is no safety, Carol. You just don't know which way the bull will run at any given moment. And it can turn around. We saw this today. We saw this yesterday. And although most people who are in the shoot do come out OK, there are injuries almost every day. There have been occasional deaths. And the main thrill of it is you just don't know what's going to happen.
COSTELLO: And is that why safety features aren't put into place because it would take the fun out of it?
GOODMAN: Well they do do -- they throw -- for instance, the police -- there are relative safety features by Spanish standards. But here in Spain I would say the risk factor in life (ph) is tolerated perhaps at a higher level than in the United States. In fact, Nevada tried to organize one of these four years ago and state officials said no way. Here in Spain, that would be unthinkable.
They do throw drunk people out of the shoot before the running of the bulls,...
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Get out of there.
GOODMAN: ... but they don't seem to check the papers of all the people in there to see if they're certifiably nuts as you have to be a little bit in a different frame of mind to get in there. So there are some safety features. There, of course, are medical personnel along the route, and at the two main hospitals in Pamplona there are surgeons trained in bull gorings which are not very clean wounds -- Carol.
COSTELLO: No, I'd imagine they're not.
Al Goodman, thank you for that report live from Pamplona, Spain.
They throw drunks out, Chad.
MYERS: Yes.
COSTELLO: But if you're certifiably nuts, you're OK.
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