A New Jersey resident who was gored as he ran with the bulls in Spain’s famous San Fermin festival in Pamplona on Wednesday has described the experience as the highlight of his life.

Matthew Levin, 39, had clambered onto a fence during his first ever running of the bulls when a charging bull slammed into him and his friends completely by accident, driving a horn into his leg.

Levin, who only got to run 5 meters (5.5 yards) before trying to get out of the way, described encounter with the ornery beast as “the greatest experience” of his life.

The American had yet to explain how requiring 20 stitches related to life’s best experiences.

Americans have flocked to the Sanfermines festivities since Hemingway immortalized them in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises,” where he recounts witnessing the death of a young man when facing a bull.

Jake Barnes, the protagonist of the novel, is at a café lamenting what he saw when a waiter tells him there was nothing inspiring or romantic about the death: a man was gored in the back, and it was all for some ridiculous and shallow fun.

There have been 56 hospitalizations in this year’s edition of Sanfermines, 12 of them gored and two of them in critical condition.

Since 1910, 16 participants have been killed in the Pamplona running of the bulls.

Pamplona, Jul 13 (EFE)