SPAIN’S most famous matador has admitted he was ‘very afraid’ after suffering a horror goring to his backside during jubilant Feria de Abril celebrations in Sevilla.
Jose Antonio Morante Camacho, better known as Morante de la Puebla, was rushed to hospital on Monday evening and has remained there since after a 512kg raging bull drove a horn into his rear-end.
“I had a rather rough night,” the 46-year-old said from his hospital bed in the Andalucian capital.
“It’s the [goring] that has hurt me the most. I was in immense pain and also very afraid because I thought I was bleeding.
“I feared it may have reached my guts. When I got to the infirmary and saw the bleeding was slight, I relaxed, but it did hurt a great deal.
“The truth is, I’m in a lot of pain. I’ve gone through a pretty normal night of light sleep. I’ve got no appetite, and I’m hoping to get through it with, well, a bit of patience.”
Medics initially said the matador, regarded by many as the best of his generation, was in a ‘very serious’ but not life-threatening condition.
A medical report released to the press said the Sevilla-born torero suffered an eye-watering ‘injury by a bull’s horn […] extending approximately 10cm, partially damaging the rear sphincter muscles, with a 1.5cm perforation in the posterior wall of the rectum’.
Doctors have imposed strict fasting and intravenous feeding to protect the wound and reduce the risk of a nasty infection.
Morante de la Puebla was making his return from retirement to a capacity crowd at Sevilla’s La Maestranza bullring when the bull, named Clandestino, hurled him against the sand and trampled on his back.
The fighter, visibly in pain, was carried out of the ring by colleagues before being hurried to hospital in an ambulance.
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