A Spanish bullfighter was gored to death in 2017 after tripping over his own cape.

Ivan Fandiño was a veteran matador and was taking part in the Aire-sur-l’Adour bullfighting festival in southwest France when the incident occurred.

The 36-year-old was rushed to hospital after he was gored in the ring, but did not survive while his chilling final words later revealed.

Fandiño, originally from the Basque country, had been a matador for 12 years and was known for his willingness to confront bulls that others deemed too dangerous.

Before his injury, he had already taken part in a competition earlier that day.

The matador and father had caught his feet in his cloak and fell to the floor where he was gored by the half-tonne bull.

He was renowned for facing bulls others deemed too dangerous. (DANIEL VELEZ/AFP via Getty Images)

The animal’s horn pierced a number of vital organs in Fandiño’s torso, including his lungs.

Photographs at the time showed him conscious as he was led away from the ring while bleeding heavily.

French media reported that he then died on his way to hospital from a heart attack.

As he was being rushed away, his harrowing final words were reportedly: “Hurry up, I’m dying.”

Matador Juan del Alamo, who later killed the bull, said at the time: “I can’t believe it. None of us understand how it could have happened; it was all so fast. The bull knocked him down with its hindquarters and he fell face down.”

Fandiño had been injured in the ring at least twice before. In 2015, he was thrown into the air by a bull in Pamplona, Spain. And more seriously, the year before, he had been knocked unconscious in Bayonne, France.

He had been injured before in the controversial ‘sport’. (LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images)

It was reported that Fandiño was the first matador to die in France in a century. The country’s France’s Sud-Ouest newspaper said Isidoro Mari Fernando was its last, when he died in the arena in Béziers in 1921.

Fandiño was honoured by the Spanish royal family and prime minister at the time with King Felipe tweeting a tribute to a ‘great bullfighter figure’.

The matador’s death came nearly a year after Spanish Victor Barrio became the first matador to die in Spain in 30 years, after he was gored at an event on live television.

Bullfighting is an extremely controversial practice and was declared legal in France in 2012 despite pleas from animal rights campaigners to ban it.

And despite pleas in Spain, it remains legal there with it considered to be part of the country’s ‘cultural heritage.’