In 2017, Iván Fandiño, a well-known Spanish matador, lost his life after being gored by a bull at a festival in southwest France.
The experience 36-year-old lost his balance after becoming tangled in his cape during the Aire-sur-l’Adour bullfighting tournament.
A parent from the Basque Country of Spain, Fandiño had been a professional matador for more than ten years and was well-known for taking on bulls that other matadors in the sport deemed too hazardous. Before entering the ring once more on the day of the accident, he had previously taken part in an earlier fight.
Fandiño lost his cape during the battle and fell to the ground, where the charging bull’s horn struck him. He was gored in the torso by the approximately half-tonne monster, which punctured his lungs and other vital organs.
Fandiño was bleeding profusely, but he remained conscious as he was taken from the arena. His last words, according to witnesses, were, “Hurry up, I’m dying.” On the way to the hospital, he had a deadly heart attack.
Juan del Álamo, a fellow matador who later killed the bull, said, “I can’t believe it,” in shock at the development. It happened so quickly that none of us can comprehend how it could have happened. He fell face down as the bull’s hindquarters knocked him down.
Fandiño had already suffered severe injuries. He was thrown into the air during a fight in Pamplona, Spain, in 2015, and he was rendered unconscious in the ring in Bayonne, France, in 2014. Nevertheless, his passing stunned the bullfighting community because it was the first matador death in France in almost a century. Sud-Ouest, a regional newspaper in France, reports that the last was Isidoro Mari Fernando, who passed away in Béziers in 1921.
Following his passing, Fandiño received a plethora of tributes throughout Spain, including one from King Felipe VI, who praised him as a “great bullfighting figure.” Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister at the time, also paid his respects.
Fandiño passed away less than a year after Spanish matador Víctor Barrio, the first matador to die in Spain in thirty years, was gored to death during a televised event. Barrio was another well-known bullring death.
Bullfighting is still a very contentious custom. Despite being prohibited in some areas, it was deemed lawful in France in 2012 after judges determined that it was a component of the nation’s regional culture. Despite mounting calls from animal rights activists for a complete prohibition, Spain also maintains its protection of the practice.