Six Hurt on First Day of Pamplona Bull Run

Six half-tonne bulls charged down the cobbled streets of Pamplona today, chasing thousands of runners prepared to risk life and limb in the first of a week of bull runs in this northern Spanish city.

The bull runs, part of the city's annual San Fermin fiestas, got off to a dangerous start as six runners were taken to hospital. One was reportedly in intensive care, suffering paralysis from the neck down, after being tossed into the air by one of the calves released into the crowd in the bull-ring at the end of the run.

Foreign runners, attracted to a fiesta first made famous by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, once again proved they were the most likely to get hurt in the half-mile dash through Pamplona's streets.

A New Zealander, David MacDowell, 25, was the first to be gored as a bull's horn ripped into his thigh. A British man broke his wrist and an American suffered facial injuries.

The paralysed man was a 31-year-old New Yorker. Officials said he could not move his legs and was taken to the Hospital de Navarra for an emergency operation. "He is in very serious condition and could be paralysed for life," said Pello Pellejero, a Pamplona government spokesman.

At 8am six bulls stormed out of the corral where they had spent the night to start the 900-metre run along a route crowded with people wearing the traditional red and white colours of the fiestas.

One frightened, angry bull dropped his head and charged a group of runners trapped against a wall. Several other runners were battered as the bulls skidded around a corner in their dash towards the city's bullring.

All six bulls were due to be killed this evening in a proper bull-fight with three of Spain's top matadors.

Animal rights campaigners had marched through the city in their underwear on Wednesday to protest at what they claimed was cruelty to the bulls.

Alan Donohue, frontman for British guitar band The Rakes, was arrested after stripping off during the protest.

"I did take all my clothes off and tried to run down the streets but got apprehended by riot police," he said. "It's not necessary to eat and exploit animals."

More than 400 people were injured in the bull runs last year, with about 30 needing hospital treatment.

Fourteen people have been killed since 1924. A Spaniard was killed in 2003 and an American student died in 1995.