American Fatally Gored in Spain

A young American on his first trip abroad joined the street frenzy of Pamplona’s running of the bulls Thursday, only to fall onto the cobblestones and be fatally gored by a charging 1,100-pound bull.

Matthew P. Tassio, 22, of Glen Ellyn, Ill., died at Navarra Hospital shortly after he was lacerated in the midsection by the long horns of one of six fighting bulls in the run made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.”

Tassio was the first to die at the San Fermin festival in 15 years.

The young man, who was wearing sneakers, a T-shirt, shorts and a bandanna around his neck, either stumbled or was knocked down by the crowd of runners early in the 825-yard dash from the corral to Pamplona’s bullring, witnesses said.

When he tried to get up, the bull hooked him in the side. The bull’s horn cut through Tassio’s liver and into the main artery leading from his heart, hospital officials said.

Tassio had graduated in spring from the University of Illinois with a degree in electrical engineering and was to begin a job this fall.