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Brothers are Hemingway heroes

Penn grad, sib gored in Spain

MICHAEL LENAHAN - a 23-year-old recent University of Pennsylvania grad who lives and works in Philadelphia - recently beat testicular cancer into remission and wanted to do something exciting, according to his teenaged brother.

So Lenahan, who works as a salesman for food giant General Mills, traveled halfway around the world to meet his adventure-seeking older brother for the infamous annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

"This was kind of a celebration," Lenahan's younger brother, 15-year-old Kevin, said yesterday by telephone from Lakewood, Ohio, where his older brothers grew up. "He wanted to get back out in the world, to get back out there."

Unfortunately, Michael Lenahan and his 26-year-old brother Lawrence both got a little more excitement than they bargained for.

The two brothers were each gored on Thursday in the city in northeastern Spain when one of the six 1,300-pound bulls (along with six steers) running in the event made famous by Ernest Hemingway turned around and headed the wrong way.

In a stunning moment that was captured on film, the bull's left horn pierced deep into Michael Lenahan's right leg. Lawrence Lenahan suffered an eight-inch gash in his left buttock as he tried unsuccessfully to dodge the charging bull on a stretch called "dead man's curve."

Neither brother suffered a life-threatening injury, although both are still hospitalized in Spain and could remain there for up to a week, Kevin said, with a possible lengthy recovery to follow.

"After it was all over my brothers looked at each other across the street, and Lawrence could see the bone and muscles and tendons in Michael's right leg," said Kevin, who spoke with them by phone yesterday.

All told, authorities said 13 people had been injured by the wrong-way bulls, with four of the wounds, including the Lenahan brothers', considered serious. It was the worst mishap at the yearly event - which dates back to 1591 - in more than a decade.

In 1995, a 22-year-old American died after being gored. Since people began keeping track in 1924, the event has claimed 13 lives, but it has been associated with a type of machismo since Hemingway wrote about it in 1926's "The Sun Also Rises."

"I remember looking back and thinking I was in trouble," said Lawrence Lenahan, who was a captain in the Air Force and now lives in Hermosa Beach, Calif., in a phone interview with the Associated Press from his hospital bed in Pamplona.

Younger brother Kevin said that Lawrence became something of an international thrill-seeker during years in the military, when he worked on global-positioning-system (GPS) technology and visited numerous countries. He said the famed Pamplona event "was on his list of the things that he wanted to do."

The Ohio brother said that Michael - who now lives in the Presidential Apartments on City Avenue after graduating from Penn - was interested in coming along after completing his cancer treatments.

And he said the two brothers, at least for now, don't seem to have any qualms about what happened. Indeed, a wire-service photo (top, left) shows Michael Lenahan looking at the newspaper headline and photo of his injury, somewhat bemused.

"They thought it was pretty crazy," Kevin said. "I don't think they regret it. Maybe they will at some point, but not right now." *

The Associated Press contributed to this article.