Bullfighter who practiced non-violent version of sport gored to death while trying to rescue a friend
A bullfighter in Spain, who was known practice a non-violent version of the sport and leaped over the massive animals who charged at him instead of bleeding them out with a sword, has reportedly been gored to death. 27-year-old Ruben Quintanar died after he tried to rescue a friend from the deadly horns of a furious animal. He died at La Fe Hospital in Calencia only minutes after the horn of the bull went through his heart and lung.
Quintanar was trying to help a freind who had fallen down while they were at the village fiesta in Paiporta which is 3.1 miles from Valencia. He was a well-respected and highly acclaimed "recortador".
Recortadores is a form of bullfighting that is bloodless, as in the animals are not injured with swords. The recortador is a performer in the ring who demonstrates acrobatic abilities that include leaping over the charging bulls without using any help from a cape or a sword. The one who is able to get the closest to the raging bulls is the ones who will ultimately win the contests.
According to Las Provincias, a local publication, Quintanar bravely slid in front of the angry animal to protect his friend. The bull then turned it's attention to him and subsequently gored him to death. In spite of the efforts of the paramedics and the local police officers who were at the event, they said that "nothing could be done" to save young Quintanar's life. He was pronounced dead at the hospital moments after arriving there in the ambulance.
The festival where Quintanar lost his life had started around 5:45 pm on June 9 in Paiporta. The first bull, Botijero, was introduced at that time. The animal is black and white and came from the Domingo Lopez Chavez Ledesma ranch in Salamanca.
A massive crowd had gathered to watch the scene while 2,000 runners were immediately chased by the large animal. One of the runner tripped close to the bull and fell down. Quintanar saw this happening and immediately rushed to the aid of his fallen comrade. The aim was to try and distract the beast long enough for his friend to be able to get away from there.
Unfortunately, Quintanar himself lost footing and slid right in front of the furious animal. The bull then aimed it's lethal horns at the young recortador's upper body and went in for the kill. Marco Antonio Navarro, the president of the El Cer Cerril de Paiporta Club, which is an association that organized this event in the area, immediately stopped the rest of the event in a show of respect for the deceased performer.
He said: "In nine years, nothing like this had happened. We are talking about the death of a kid." Bullfighters from across the country have paid tribute to the youong man.
Art and Emotion, the bullfighting event organizers, posted on Twitter: "Very dismayed at the tragic event of this afternoon. We give all the strength to [his] family and friends in these hard times. Tonight, another star will shine in the sky."
In June last year, acclaimed Spanish bullfighting champion Ivan Fandino died after he was gored to death by a bull during a fight that took place in southwestern France in what was, and still is, seen as a devastating event in the Spanish bullfighting community. The 36-year-old matador tripped on his own cloak and was immediately gored by the horn of the bull which punctured his lung from behind.
The Basque bullfighter was giving a performance at the Aire-sur-l'Adour bullfighting festival in France along with fellow matadors Juan Del Alamo and Thomas Dufau. Fandino had won a fight that had taken place earlier by cutting off a bull's ear. After the accident, he was carried away from the scene by his colleagues and the shocked audience saw blood flowing through his traditional embroidered costume.
An inside medical source had told AFP that Fandino had suffered from two heart attacks in the ambulance that he was being taken to the hospital in. The hospital was in Mont-de-Marsan, which is a town near the venue.
Bullfighting has been around in Spain for centuries and about 1,800 shows take place in the country every year which draw in crowd that number in the millions. Many "aficianados" think the sport is an crucial art form in Spanish culture and want to keep it alive.
The Spanish authorities, however, have been facing increasing pressure from animal rights groups to put an end to the bloody sport. After one matador's death, activists renewed their efforts to ban bullfighting completely saying that the so-called tradition is cruel and anachronistic. The regional government of Castilla y Leon had banned the killing of bulls in their town festivals in 2016.
The nationalistic regional government of northern Catalonia had outlawed bullfighting in 2012 but then Spain's Constitutional Court ended up overruling the ban in October 2016.