Bullfighter recovering after horror goring

A Spanish bullfighter is recovering from a five hour operation to repair his face after a terrifying goring in the north-eastern city of Zaragoza, according to a hospital official.

Television images showed the moment when the bull’s left horn ripped into Juan Jose Padilla’s lower jaw to emerge beside his protruding eyeball as spectators screamed in horror.

The hospital spokesman said Mr Padilla had suffered eye, bone, muscle and skin damage when the bull pinned him to the ground and gored him.

TV footage also showed Mr Padilla getting up from the ring, his face gushing blood, as the bull was distracted by bullring assistants.

“I can’t see, I can’t see anything,” the matador shouted as he was taken to emergency facilities at Zaragoza’s Misericordia bullring before being driven to the city’s Miguel Servet Hospital for surgery.

The bull, named Marques, weighed 1,120 pounds and was the second fighting beast Padilla had faced during the second day of the annual Virgen del Pilar festivities in Zaragoza.

Surgeons used titanium plates and mesh to reconstruct parts of Padilla’s facial bone structure and eye socket, doctors Simon Sanz and Nadal Cristobal said in a very detailed, signed statement.

A hospital spokesman said surgeons had tried to reconstruct the bullfighter’s left ocular nerve.

Padilla was lucky the horn did not penetrate his brain, said Vicente Yesteras, one of Padilla’s retinue of bullring helpers.