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Gored Spanish bullfighter in “phenomenal” recovery: agent

Top Spanish matador Jose Tomas was showing a “phenomenal” recovery after being gored and hurled into the air by a bull, his agent said Monday.

Tomas, 34, was breathing without help from a respirator and could leave the intensive care ward in the next 24 hours, added Geronimo Aguayo, director of the Miguel Hidalgo hospital in the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes.

Tomas’ condition went “from grave to delicate,” Aguayo told reporters.

The bullfighter’s agent, Salvador Boix, said that he spoke to his client, who he said “has made a phenomenal recovery.”

Tomas “expects to have a birth certificate from Aguascalientes — because, for him, he was born again Saturday night,” said Boix, who spoke alongside Aguayo.

Tomas was gored in the left thigh by a 470-kilogramme (1,000-pound) bull named “Navegante” before a horrified crowd during a corrida Saturday at the Monumental bullring in Aguascalientes.

The bull thrust one if its horns 17 centimeters (seven inches) inside the matador’s thigh muscle, severing an artery. As he lay bleeding profusely in the arena, a call went out on loudspeakers pleading for blood donations.

“He lost more than half the blood that a human being has inside their body,” one of the surgeons who treated him, Alfredo Ruiz Romero, told reporters.

Doctors late Saturday spent three hours trying to repair a femoral artery perforated during the bullfight.

This is the most serious injury ever suffered in the arena by Tomas, who is known for putting himself in danger before the bull with a calm command and precise choreography which thrills spectators.

Tomas, who hails from a small town near Madrid in the heart of Spain’s bull-rearing heartland, returned to the ring in June 2007 after an absence of more than four years.

He is often compared to legendary 1940s bullfighter Manolete, who died in the ring at age 30.

Boix told reporters that Tomas will likely spend the months he needs to recover in Aguascalientes, where he owns a home. The bullfighter spends half his time in Mexico, Boix said.

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