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.
Filthy mouth DUmmies. Why go to that downer site?
I wonder if the DNC monitors that site and marvels at how insane their base truly is?
I'd still rather hunt with Cheney, than drive with Kennedy.
Was the guy wearing a "Hillary for Pres" t-shirt by any chance??
(Almost feel bad pointing this out, but here goes...)
Hugh opportunity here:
Cheney steps aside on some pretext,
Condoleezza Rice assumes Vice Presidency.
Rice runs in 2008 as incumbant candidate.
Hillary is TOAST.
DU has already started! Onlooker (1000+ posts) Sun Feb-12-06 03:56 PM Response to Original message 21. Attempted murder From what I know about Cheney, this was almost certainly a case of attempted murder (motivated by pure psychopathic behavior), but will there be an investigation?
I'm curious. The way things are now, would one of us be charged with a crime if we did it?
Bump for later.
LOL!!
Good gosh they got a million threads over there. The funeralgate thread will now bring up that old ghost have them talking for days
Well now we have a new punchline for trolls...
Wanna go hunting with the Dick????
LOL
Fox was just reporting that the victim was "at fault" in the accident. He came up from behind of the VP and didn;t signal. The VP didn't see him.
My first thought!!...here come the libs, out of the woodwork, being followed in procession by the animal rights activists and the anti-gun lobbyists!!.....Hold on everyone!!
Def true. It was carelessness. Fox saying he was "peppered pretty good" but ok
Lol
Sounds like the fellow who was shot walked into the VPS line of fire without warning
Not bad.
And I thought it was going to be a slow afternoon
LOL.
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