Posted on 02/12/2006 12:46:46 PM PST by bayourant
Edited on 02/12/2006 2:10:43 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Harry Whittington, 78, was "alert and doing fine" after Cheney sprayed him with shotgun pellets on Saturday while the two were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong.
Armstrong said Whittington was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest, and was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Whittington was in stable condition Sunday, said Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System.
Cheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington, a lawyer from Austin, Texas, and his wife at the hospital on Sunday afternoon.
Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.
Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and found a second covey.
Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong told the Associated Press in an interview.
"The vice president didn't see him," she continued. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by god, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good."
The shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
She said Whittington was bleeding but not very seriously injured, and Cheney was very apologetic.
"It broke the skin," she said. "It knocked him silly. But he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."
She said emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington, holding his face and cleaning up the blood.
"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been," she said. "The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."
Armstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year. She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.
"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.
___
Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Dallas contributed to this report.
He didn't know the gun was loaded! Honest!
Where exactly did I blame him?
He said he didn't see anything about it posted; I merely pointed out that there was a thread with CHENEY'S NAME in it a full five minutes before he posted his.
Don't you work off the Latest Posts page? It's all over there.
lol
I was hit with buckshot hunting by my stupid moron brother once :-)
Ok, sue me. Even the Fox anchors are having a hard time keeping a straight face.
Shooting lawyers should be a new American Pastime. ;-)
From the DU paranoia dept--
Accident My Ass
He shot that man on purpose because he feels that he's above the law. This is another test case
LOL! there is NOTHING in me that thinks that Cheney would SHOOT someone on purpose- unless of course they were interfering in a BIG OIL deal....
S'okay.
If the guy was seriously hurt it'd be one thing but this story is getting to get a lot of laughs this week.
AP always prints what they wish would happen, not what happened.
well at least he's no Aaron Burr.
It's still safer than going driving with Teddy Kennedy.
WHy?
lol, AZ. Sorry to hear that. (I'm sorry this is one of those laughing in church situations. I cant keep a straight face! It's so absurd!)
Oh, my God!
What is W doing to that turkey, and why are they both SMILING?
Well, I knew Cheney was a sportsman, but didn't know he was a quail hunter....
A DAY AT THE BEACH
On a tour of Texas, the Pope took a couple of days off to visit the coastal area for some sightseeing. He was cruising along the sea wall on Galveston Isle in his Pope mobile when suddenly he notices a frantic commotion just off shore.
There was John Kerry struggling frantically to free himself from the jaws of a 25-foot shark. As the Pope watched, horrified, a speedboat came racing up with two men aboard. One of the men, President George W. Bush quickly fired a harpoon into the shark's side while Dick Cheney reached out and pulled the bleeding, semi-conscious John Kerry from the water. Then using baseball bats, the two heroes beat the shark to death and hauled it into the boat.
Immediately the Pope shouted and summoned them to the beach. "I give you my blessings for your brave actions," he told them. "I heard that there was some bitter hatred between President Bush and John Kerry, but now I have seen with my own eyes that this is not true."
As the Pope drove off, President Bush asked Dick "Who was that?"
It was the Pope," Dick replied. "He is in direct contact with God and has all of God's wisdom."
Well," President Bush said, "he may have access to God's wisdom, but he doesn't know squat about shark fishing................how's the bait holding up?"
rofling!
/DUmbass tinfoil hat
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