MADRID, Spain -- For Michael and Lawrence Lenahan, a trip to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, was supposed to celebrate life.

Instead, they were fighting for their lives after being gored.

A bull strayed from the pack Thursday, turned around halfway and charged the wrong way during the daily morning bull run.

An Associated Press photograph captured both Michael, a 23-year-old General Mills sales executive from Philadelphia, and Lawrence, a 26-year-old Air Force captain from Hermosa Beach, Calif., pinned against a wall and getting injured.

Photos also made the front page of several newspapers in Spain.

Describing the scene from their hospital bed in Pamplona, Michael and Lawrence told NBC 10 what it was like to come face-to-face with a 1,600-pound bull.

Lawrence said it was "about 10 feet behind us and charging fast. We knew we were in trouble. One horn got Michael, and another horn got myself."

Michael said, "My leg was in shambles. You could see the bone and the muscle and all the tendons and everything."

Their father, Larry Lenahan, spoke with NBC 10 from Ohio and called the incident sadly ironic. Michael had just recovered from testicular cancer.

"He decided that once a year he was going to take a trip somewhere and do some exciting thing to live life to its fullest as much as he could," the father said.

Instead, the trip left the younger of the two brothers recovering from an injury that nearly severed his right leg.

"They actually took the skin that was left around and got it back on his leg," the father said.

Lawrence was recovering from an 8-inch cut on his buttock.

At a Pamplona hospital both are in stable condition, undergoing heavy dosages of antibiotics and said they feel hopeful about the future.

"They're telling us both that there won't be any long-term issues," Lawrence said. "We'll both have some nasty scars in different locations. But they're most worried about infection because the bull's horn is pretty dirty."

The bull run is a part of the 400-year-old San Fermin festival in the northeastern city of Pamplona. It gained worldwide fame in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."

Since records began in 1924, 13 people have been killed in the runs.