Eddie Winfield, the rider injured last Saturday when he was tossed by a bull at the Lewiston rodeo, got out of the hospital Friday, according to the tour spokeswoman.

“Officially, I guess he took a horn in the rectum,” said Megan Darnell, public relations manager for Professional Bull Riders’ head office.

PBR riders and bulls were in town two nights last weekend at the Colisee. Winfield’s injury was the only one.

The 33-year-old had emergency surgery Saturday night at Central Maine Medical Center. He’ll be out of the tour for a year, Darnell said.

Winfield, from Middletown, Md., has been a professional bull rider for eight years. His career earnings total $10,390.40, according to PBR.

The company Web site, pbrnow.com, lists a weekly rider injury report. For the week of May 24, 20 riders were out with injuries or competing hurt with everything from broken ribs to a strained wrist.

Darnell said that only includes the riders who compete on the televised Built Ford Tough tour.

She expected PBR would return to Maine in 2007, but the schedule hasn’t been set.

– Kathryn Skelton
Bull charges Quimby truck

Monica Quimby’s family has gone through enough. But life continues to challenge them.

Quimby is the Turner college student who was paralyzed in January in a skiing accident. She’s undergoing physical therapy and plans to return to the University of New Hampshire this fall.

On June 10 her father, Scott Quimby, was driving down River Road in Leeds when out of nowhere a bull charged, crashing into his truck. Scott initially didn’t know what hit him.

“I looked in my rear view, and he was in the road just looking at me.”

The bull then took off, and was eventually captured. It was one of the bulls used in last weekend’s rodeo at the Lewiston Colisee. The bull was being kept at an area farm.

Scott’s Ford F-1 truck was damaged “pretty bad,” he said. He can barely drive it. The bull charged the passenger door and hit the side so hard that he broke the tail lights.

Meanwhile there’s Scott, trying to explain how a bull hit him to his insurance agent and everyone else. “Everybody’s laughing at me,” Scott said, laughing about it himself.

“My truck wasn’t even red. It’s green.”

– Bonnie Washuk
Edgy in Africa

Jake Sasseville still wants to be famous.

The 20-year-old college sophomore from Lewiston – who spent years running a talk show on a local public access channel – is headed to Africa.

Sasseville sent out a press release this week, saying how he planned to visit orphanages and refugee camps in several countries, including the war-stricken Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The schmoozy interviewer, whose guests have included “Survivor” contestant Zoe Zanidackis and Big Bird, said he wants to find out “what is really going on in Africa.”

Documentarian Ray Pagnucco and producer Amy Emmerich, who sometimes works for MTV, will go with Sasseville.

The footage will be used on his talk show, “The Edge with Jake Sasseville.”

The young host wasn’t sure when it would air.

For the past three years, Sasseville, who attends Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, has been working to secure a deal that would get his show on commercial TV.

– Daniel Hartill

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