A runner was gored in the face during a chaotic bull run at Spain's San Fermin festival in Pamplona on Saturday, while many others narrowly avoided serious injury. The event saw six bulls and accompanying steers charge through crowds of thrill-seekers packed into the narrow, cobbled street course, knocking people to the ground and causing several pileups as stumbling runners fell.

According to the University of Navarra Hospital, one runner was pierced in the face by a horn, and 12 more people required medical treatment for various knocks. A black bull broke away from the pack early in the 875-metre run and ploughed into a group of people, striking one full in the side of the face, though it was not clear whether this was the moment of the goring. The two-and-a-half-minute run was the fifth of the eight-day festival, which this year coincides with the centenary of Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun Also Rises", the book credited with bringing San Fermin to international fame.