Spanish bullfighter gored to death after tripping on cape

The bullfighter Iván Fandiño has died after being gored in a ring in France, becoming the second Spanish matador to be killed in less than 12 months after the death of Víctor Barrio last July.

Entertaining a crowd Aire-sur-l’Adour, southwestern France, on Saturday, Fandiño tripped on his cape and fell to the floor, allowing the bull he was fighting to gore him savagely in his right flank.

The Basque bullfighter from Orduña near Bilbao was rushed out of the arena by his fellow bullfighters and underwent an emergency procedure in the bullring’s surgery before being put in ambulance bound for a nearby hospital.

But he was pronounced dead on arrival.

“Hurry up, I’m dying,” are reported to have been the 36-year-old bullfighter’s last words in the ambulance.

“I have no words; I can’t believe it,” said Juan del Álamo, the bullfighter who eventually killed the animal that had gored Fandiño.

“He was in a lot of pain from the goring, but nobody expected it to end up like this. None of us understand how it could have happened; it was all so fast. The bull knocked him down with its hindquarters and he fell face down,” Mr Del Álamo told television cameras.

The fatal goring of Víctor Barrio last July in Teruel, Spain, led to controversy as some animal rights supporters expressed their joy at his death on social networks.

Barrio was the first Spanish bullfighter to have been killed in action since 1985.

According to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Fandiño had to be reanimated after suffering a heart attack while in the bullring’s surgery. A second heart attack reportedly ended his life in the ambulance.