So why would Hammerbeck, the divorced owner of a mortgage brokerage firm, test his mettle against an enraged mammal 10 times his size—all while sleep-deprived and hungover? Some might consider that foolhardy. Not Hammerbeck. "You should do the things that make you feel alive," he explains. Back home in Chicago after a stay in Pamplona's Virgen del Camino hospital, Hammerbeck relived his high-risk encounter.
My dad grew up on a ranch in South Dakota and rode bulls to put himself through college. He was actually cut up twice by bulls, but he still always encouraged me to do adventurous stuff. I learned about San Fermin from reading Hemingway, and this year I finally persuaded a friend, Reebok salesman Paul Manning, to go with me.
The first three days we were in Spain, we drank all night, gambled and had a really good time. By the time the bulls ran on Friday morning, we hadn't slept for about 40 hours. At 6:30 a.m., we staked out spots on the route where the bulls run—an 825-yard route from the corral to the Plaza de Toros bullring—then waited as the sun came up. Soon, there were thousands of us crammed like sardines inside these barriers. Slowly, your adrenaline starts pumping and thoughts like, "Do I really want to do this?" race through your head. There was an electric nervousness, like what I used to feel before playing football in high school. Then a bottle rocket explodes, signaling that the bulls are being released only 200 yards away.
Most people ran as fast as they could so they wouldn't actually have to run with the bulls, but my friend and I jogged slowly so we could run right alongside them. Soon you see this rush of people behind you, and there's panic and screaming. All of a sudden we caught a glimpse of this brown blur, and it's a giant bull with supersharp horns coming right at us. I lost sight of my friend and just ran with the first batch of bulls for about 400 yards until they passed me.
I had already had the huge adrenaline rush I came for when I heard someone scream, "There are more bulls behind us!" I guess I wasn't thinking clearly, but I ran back and saw a bull turning in circles, looking for someone to gore. I ran around behind it, and it turned and looked at me. I wanted to touch both its horns and then run with it into the bullring. I'm pretty athletic, so I figured I was quicker than he was. I felt super-powerful and invincible.
I moved to my left and then to my right, but the bull was too quick. It slammed its horn into my left leg and drove me into the fence. It pinned me there for a moment before pulling back and pushing me against the bottom of the fence. I got up on my good leg and ran off its horn. The bull just looked at me and took off. My pants were covered in blood, and I thought my hip was crushed. But although the horn went in about nine inches deep, it missed my hip, colon and stomach—the best possible luck I could have had. I didn't really even feel it.
They put me on an operating table outside the bullring and performed surgery right there. They gave me anesthetic that knocked me out, and the next thing I knew I woke up really sore in the Virgen del Camino hospital. There was no nerve damage, and I anticipate that I'll be able to pretty much get back to normal. I do have a seven-inch crescent-shaped scar on my left thigh and buttock, but otherwise I'm fine.
After all that, my friend and I are already making plans to do this again next year. There really isn't anything I've ever done that compares to this. You can't rob banks, and you can't drive 160 miles an hour on the freeway. It's one of the last bastions of sheer danger left, and you don't even need a permit.
I bought the bull's head for $2,000 after it was killed later that day in a bullfight, and I'm going to have it mounted. It still has some of my blood on its left horn, and it's going to be a great conversation piece. Hemingway looked at life as an opportunity to have an adventure every day, and, let's face it, you could walk out the door today and get hit by a bus.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
