Claims, hints and silence on wound treatment in France
An injured Victor Mendes being taken to the plaza infirmary at Nîmes (1989)
On Friday, July 14, whilst toreando a difficult bull of Peñajara de Casta Jijona at Céret, Rafael Rubio Luján Rafaelillo was caught and gored in his left arm. He was taken to the plaza infirmary, where he was attended to by a team of seven staff. The wound was explored under local anaesthetic and the matador was given antibiotics and analgesics and, within 30 minutes, he was sent on to Céret’s health clinic. Here, the wound was examined once more and a scan taken that showed no active bleeding. Rafaelillo was then transferred to the Hospital Saint Pierre at Perpignan.
When colleagues of Rafaelillo followed on later, they arrived at the hospital to be told that the matador had been placed in the cardiac unit but could not be operated on until the next day as, it being Bastille Day (a national holiday in France), there was no surgeon to hand. This was concerning to both the matador and his supporters and, in the end, Rafaelillo left the hospital in the middle of the night, against medical advice and under the responsibility of one of his party, to make the 11-hour journey to Murcia where the operation was finally carried out.
Two days later, Álvaro de la Calle received a more serious wounding in his right leg in the same plaza and was operated on at the nearby clinic.
The aftermath of the two gorings prompted some debate due to the different medical practices in Spain and France. In Spain, the practice since the death of Paquirri in 1984 has been to operate at the plaza infirmary and infirmaries are equipped accordingly (or mobile facilities are on hand). In France, operations rarely take place in the infirmaries - the aim is simply to stabilise the wounded torero before sending them on to a medical centre where surgery can take place. The French view is that this is partly because they have a more developed health system than Spain, with a hospital always within reasonable reach.
On July 19, former matador Juan José Padilla issued a rather self-aggrandising statement referring back to Luis Francisco Esplá’s near-fatal goring at Céret in 2007, when Padilla was also on the cartel. Esplá was helicoptered to the Hospital Saint Pierre and, fearing the worst, Juan José and the third matador on the cartel, Sánchez Vara, refused to allow the corrida to recommence until it was confirmed that Esplá was still alive when the helicopter touched down at Perpignan. Padilla alleged that, as a result of this action, the commission at Céret that organises the town’s ferias had vetoed him ever since. More importantly, he commented: “It seems that, in all the years since, there hasn’t been time to evaluate, update and improve the protocol methods that are applied to a torero who has received a cornada.”
Padilla soon received a reply from André Viard on behalf of France’s Observatory of Taurine Cultures, accusing the matador of a revenge attack on the authorities at Céret and destabilising la Fiesta. The protocol, stated Viard, was a matter of compliance with French law covering the treatment of people injured in accidents. In addition, he pointed out that Esplá (who had arrived at Céret’s infirmary clinically dead and whose heart had been revived there and once again at the Perpignan hospital) had survived his goring, as had many other toreros seriously wounded in French plazas. Implying that Spain’s system was no better than France’s, he added that, last year (in fact, it occurred in 2021), Sánchez Vara, released by medical personnel following a tossing at Villacañas (Toledo), subsequently went to a Madrid hospital as he still felt unwell and then had almost died of a heart attack.
On July 22, the president of the French Association of Taurine Surgery also posted a statement, saying “French plaza infirmaries are covered by municipal taurine regulations […]These oblige anyone organising bullfights in France to have a surgical team on hand […] as well as the essential equipment needed for urgent surgery (respirator, aspirator, electric scalpel, defibrillator, etc.) and two ambulances suitable for rapid transportation […] These regulations also oblige the technical president of the festejo to ensure, prior to authorising the paseíllo, that all the conditions are complied with - without this, the festejo cannot take place.
“We practice “damage control” surgery, as surgery is spoken about in instances of war or catastrophe. We don’t hesitate in realising a thoracotomy or a laparotomy to save someone in the plaza infirmary if the condition of the injured person requires this; the transfer elsewhere cannot occur unless the patient is in a stable condition. This protocol of reanimation and salvation surgery is practised a lot in today’s world - in urgent trauma surgery; by the French, English and American military surgeons; and in the civil sphere; and has proved effective in Iraq, Afghanistan and the attacks in France of November 2015.”
So much for the public comments, but there are a number of unspoken factors at large in such circumstances, too. One reason why Rafaelillo doubtless wished to be operated on quickly was because he had another contract signed to appear at Mont de Marsan on July 23 - a corrida he very much wanted to take part in given that his 2023 temporada hadn’t started until near the end of June. Another was the risk of infection occurring or of discovering at a late stage that the wound had more trajectories than realised at first - Spanish toreros tend to put their faith in Spanish horn wound specialists rather than the French simply because they are more familiar with them.
One unspoken factor hanging over this topic is the death of Ivan Fandiño at Aire-sur-l’Adour in 2017. Although the doctor responsible for overseeing the stricken matador stated that the Basque’s cornada had inflicted irreparable damage and that “nothing could be done”, Fandiño was revived in the plaza’s infirmary and died as he was being transferred to a hospital. The recent goring of Morenito de Aranda at Vic Fezensac hadn’t helped improve toreros’ confidence in the French protocols either - as he was taken off to Toulouse (some distance away) by ambulance and then helicopter with a 20cm wound in his chest after a dramatic cogida, the corrida had had to be suspended for over an hour as Morenito’s departure had revealed that (despite France’s regulations) there was no second ambulance available to transport anyone else who might be injured. The medics at the plaza also admitted that the full extent of the torero’s injury would not be known until he had reached Toulouse and could be examined further.
Another factor at play, as Padilla hinted, is the possibility of being blacklisted by the French authorities if a torero complains about France’s protocols for attending to injuries. For toreros modestos in particular, France remains a vital market. And so the toreros largely stay silent about a system they feel puts them in more peril than they generally experience in Spain. Surely, at the very least, the doctors involved in the French Association of Taurine Surgery could make efforts to raise their profile and increase their contact with Spanish toreros beyond the infirmary?