An award-winning Spanish bullfighter has died after being gored by a rampaging bull during a festival in southwest France.
Fandino, pictured earlier in the bout, had wanted to be a bullfighter from when he was 14
A Spanish bullfighter died after he tripped on his cloak and was then fatally gored in the side when he fell to the ground with horrified spectators hearing him scream: “Hurry up, I’m dying”.
The Sun UK reports that 36-year-old Ivan Fandino, was killed during a bull-running festival in Aire-sur-l’Adour in the southwest of France.
Witnesses said he was using his cloak to entice the bull to charge when his feet became entangled in the material and he could not free himself in time.
Fandino, who came from Orduna in Bizkaia, was stabbed in his lung in front of a horrified crowd. He was rushed to the bullring’s infirmary and then on to a hospital in Mont de Marsan.
Ivan Fandino is carried out of the arena after being impaled by a bull at the Corrida des Fetes
It is understood he had a heart attack in the ambulance and on his arrival doctors could not save him.
A member of the crowd said at first many spectators did not realise Fandino was in trouble.
“Ivan was caught by surprise and suffered the consequences,” the witness said. “People were cheering to begin with, thinking everything was under control.
“Then we realised that Ivan was very badly hurt, and he was rushed away by other matadors, supported by paramedics.”
Fandino wanted to become a bullfighter from the age of 14, even though it was not a family tradition, and made his debut in 2005.
The last Spanish bullfighter who died due to a goring in the ring was Victor Barrio, who was killed at the age of 29 after being gored in the bullring in Teruel on July 9, 2016.
He was the first Spanish matador to die in the arena since 1992. Fandino had been invited to take part in the 18th elebration of the San Isidro Fair.
A shocked colleague said: “It’s a tragedy. We just do not know how it could have happened.”