Spain: blinded matador returns to ring to fight another day

His face is still partly paralysed, he cannot chew food, his balance is shaky and he has lost the sight in his left eye for good – but less than five months after a horrific goring, matador Juan José Padilla is to make a triumphant and unexpected comeback.

The last time the public saw Mr Padilla, he was stumbling out of a bullring last October in Zaragoza, blood gushing from major head injuries, and screaming: “I can’t see.”

A five-hour emergency reconstruction of his lower face with titanium plates and mesh was successful, and Mr Padilla, 38, took the first faltering steps along what has been an exceptionally fast recovery.

“The most glorious moment came when I announced to my family I was going back to bullfighting,” Mr Padilla, whose nickname is El Ciclon de Jerez [The Cyclone of Jerez], told El Mundo, ahead of his comeback in Olivenza, western Spain.

“My wife didn’t want me to go back, but she had seen me in the hospital’s corridors using a towel to make [bullfighting] passes. And when I got home, she understood my happiness lay with bullfighting.” (via The Independent)