PAMPLONA, Spain – Five people were slightly injured, but no one was gored, on Thursday at the third running of the bulls at the San Fermin festival in this northern Spanish city.

Two runners – a 25-year-old Pamplona resident with an arm injury and a 47-year-old man from the town of Falces suffering from a nose injury – were taken to Virgen del Camino Hospital for treatment.

A 58-year-old man from Ascain, France, who sustained a head injury, a 43-year-old man from Valdepeñas, a city in Spain’s Jaen province, suffering from a back injury, and a 46-year-old man suffering from multiple bruises, whose hometown was not reported, were taken to Navarre Hospital.

The San Fermin festival, which is known around the world for its running of the bulls and street revelry, got under way Monday with the traditional firing of a rocket in front of Pamplona city hall.

The festival, begun about 400 years ago, was popularized by Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.”

The run through the medieval streets of Pamplona’s historic center, usually lasting four minutes, is especially dangerous because some runners take part in the event after all-night drinking binges.

This makes runners reckless and more likely to get too close to the bulls, which weigh in excess of 500 kilos (1,100 pounds).

The running of the bulls is monitored by experts who control the route and try to prevent accidents, but, inevitably, runners fall, suffer cuts and bruises, and are even gored by the animals. EFE