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This chilling incident captures the tragic moment when a famed Portuguese bullfighter lost his life after being lifted and slammed against a wall by an infuriated 1,500-pound bull.
Manuel Maria Trindade, a 22-year-old bullfighter, was making his debut performance in Lisbon’s Campo Pequeno bullring when the show ended in tragedy.
Footage from the event shows the young ‘forcado’ run towards the enormous bull to provoke the animal into charging.
The beast then ran at high speed towards Trindade, who attempted to grab onto the animal’s horns and gain control.
But in a matter of seconds Trindade was hoisted up into the air by the storming bull and thrown against the wall of the arena.
Spectators in the 6,848-seat ring shouted in horror as the victim was left sprawled on the ground.
The bull was eventually controlled when a bullfighter yanked its tail and others waved vivid capes in front of it. Despite immediate medical intervention in the ring, Trindade sustained critical head injuries.
According to Portuguese news site Zap, a 73-year-old spectator watching the bullfight also died as the horror unfolded in the bullring below.
A video from the fight shows the victim run towards the enormous bull to provoke the animal into charging
The 695-kilogram beast ran at high speed towards Trindade, who attempted to grab onto the animal’s horns and gain control
But in a matter of seconds Trindade was hoisted up into the air by the storming bull and thrown against the wall of the arena
Trindade was a young but celebrated forcado – the name of a kind of Portuguese fighter who deliberately provokes a bull into charging
Following the event, the bullfighter Trindade was urgently transported to São José Hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his devastating brain injuries within 24 hours on August 23.
The spectator who died was Vasco Morais Batista, an elderly orthopedic surgeon from the Aveiro region who was watching the horrific fight from a box.
He was treated by Red Cross paramedics before being rushed to the Santa Maria Hospital where a fatal aortic aneurysm was detected.
Trindade was a young but celebrated forcado – the name of a kind of Portuguese fighter who deliberately provokes a bull into charging.
When the bull becomes aggressive, the tradition requires a group of eight forcados to line up in succession, each attempting to leap onto the charging animal and subdue it.
In contrast with Spanish bullfighting, where the performance concludes with the matador killing the bull, the Portuguese tradition prohibits killing the bull in the arena due to a historical royal law from 1836.
Instead, the bulls are later taken away for professional butchering, although some exceptionally courageous animals might be ‘pardoned’ and sent to stud for breeding.
It is not clear what happened to the animal in Trindade’s case.
Trindade was continuing a family tradition by pursuing bullfighting and followed in his father’s footsteps who was also a forcado with the São Manços group
Paramedics rushed to treat Trindade in the ring but the injuries to his head were severe
He was rushed to São José Hospital where he was put in an induced coma, but he died within 24 hours on August 23 after irreparable brain damage
Once the bull is charging, eight forcados are supposed to one-by-one from a single-file line and attempt to wrestle the animal to a standstill
Trindade’s fellow forcados tried to stop the bull from charging towards the wooden wall
The animal was finally subdued by a bullfighter pulling its tail and others holding up bright capes in its eyeline
Forcados are unique to the Portuguese style of bullfighting and act on foot, without any protection or weapons.
Before he was completely dominated by the animal, Trindade was attempting a pega de cara (face catch), by grabbing the bull’s horns. If the stunt had been successful, Trindade’s fellow forcados would have joined him by clambering onto the animal and wrestling it to the ground to the point of submission.
The promising 22-year-old fought for the São Manços amateur bullfighting troupe, which was celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
He was from Nossa Senhora de Machede, in the municipality of Évora.
Trindade was continuing a family tradition by pursuing bullfighting and followed in his father’s footsteps who was also a forcado with the São Manços group.
The company responsible for organising Friday’s bullfight sent its ‘deepest condolences to the family, to the Grupo de Forcados Amadores de S. Manços and to all of the young man’s friends’.
Lisbon’s Campo Pequeno was built in the 1890s and is the home of Portugese bullfighting in the summer season.
The arena has capacity for 10,000 spectators.
Bullfighting has a rich history in Portugal and dates back to the late 16th century with the erection of the first-known ring in Lisbon.
In a separate bizarre incident in Spain, a man was violently upended by a bull with flaming horns at a festival.
After being provoked by a crowd, the enraged animal charged towards the reveller and flipped him over multiple times before he was able to escape through safety barriers.
The sequence of events occurred during an annual festival in Alfafar on the outskirts of the eastern Spanish city of Valencia.
The bull let loose on the street is known locally as a ‘bou embalat’.
The controversial practice has been heavily criticised by animal rights activists, who two years ago filmed sickening scenes of a bull with flaming torches attached to its horns knocking itself out after smashing into a wooden box.
