At least three people have been rushed to hospital on the first day proper of the famous San Fermín running of the bulls festival in Pamplona - hours after a man attending the event collapsed and died in a bar.

Medics confirmed the initial casualty toll this Tuesday morning 20 minutes after runners risked their lives putting themselves in front of six fighting bulls led by six steers as they sprinted along the half-mile run through the streets of Pamplona’s old town.

A fourth person hurt in the bullring was treated at the scene, with later reports saying a fifth had received medical attention but was not expected to require hospital treatment. There were no gore injuries.

The three people taken to hospital, all men, were a 61-year-old American and two Spaniards aged 20 and 34.

The American suffered a head injury but hospital chiefs said this morning it was not serious.

The 20-year-old from Segovia suffered a leg injury and the 34-year-old, from the Basque province of Vizcaya, an ankle injury.

Overnight it emerged a man had died late last night in a bar on Calle Estafeta in Pamplona, which forms part of the course.

He collapsed and went into cardiac arrest around 10.30pm. His nationality is not yet known. He was thought to have been aged around 70. His death at this stage is being linked to natural causes.

Eight encierros

The famous festival in the northern Spanish town kicked off at midday yesterday with the traditional San Fermín opening ceremony called the Chupinazo, with thousands of revellers dressed in the must-wear white outfits with a red bandana around their necks ending up soaked in wine and sangria.

This Tuesday morning’s 8am run, which lasted two minutes and 16 seconds and ended with the animals being guided into pens after reaching the town’s bullring, was the first of eight so-called encierros which form the highlight of the festival.

The animals were from the Fuente Ymbro farm in Spain’s south-west province of Cadiz, which last year also opened the famous festival including one called Zalagarda which was the heaviest of the 2025 bull runs and weighed in at a whopping 610 kilos which is 96 stone.

Famous festival

Sixteen people have been killed over the years during the bull runs at the annual festival, which finishes on 14 July and was made famous by 1926 Ernest Hemingway novel The Sun Also Rises, since records began in 1910.

The most recent death was in 2009 when 27-year-old Daniel Jimeno, from Madrid, was gored in the neck by a bull called Capuchino.

Several foreigners, from Australians to Americans through to Brits and Irish, are normally among the injured.