An American man is recovering in the intensive care unit of a hospital in western Salamanca after being savagely gored during a bullfighting festival, officials said.
Surgeon Enrique Crespo said he was called to operate on 20-year-old Benjamin Miller, from Georgia, who had been gored and tossed by a large fighting bull on Saturday, the first day of nearby Ciudad Rodrigo's Carnaval del Toro.
"It's not the worst injury I've seen, but it's the biggest goring wound I've ever had to operate on," Dr Crespo said.
Mr Miller underwent a three-hour operation to repair damage to his thighs, sphincter and back muscles, the surgeon added.
Town councillor Pedro Munoz said two other unidentified men had sustained less serious goring injuries during Saturday's events.
"One man from Scotland and a Spaniard from Salamanca were also injured," Mr Munoz said.
It has been reported that the Scot injured is a care worker from Paisley.
Fiestas featuring bulls are common in Spain, and critics and aficionados alike agree that the events, which attract international audiences, are dangerous.
"Doctor Crespo is a world-renowned expert and we have a medically-equipped helicopter on stand-by every day of our annual fiesta," Mr Munoz said.
He said somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 people had been attracted over the weekend to this year's four-day fiesta, which includes afternoon bullfights and bull-running events.
Ciudad Rodrigo - population 14,000 - is a small cathedral city close to the Portuguese border which is a popular tourist destination. It retains its ancient defensive walls and was the site of key battles between Napoleon's army and British forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington from 1810 to 1812.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article