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.
They both may have erred, there's no way of knowing, but Vice President Cheney pulled the trigger. Need to know who you're hunting with.
A mistake was made, I'm glad he's OK, which should pretty much be the end of it. But it won't, a ping list for "CheneyShoots" would last for months.
Can you imagine VP Cheney's secret service guys over this one?
Probably the first time they heard of a VP shooting someone else. Hey this isn't in our handbook LOL:)
If you have to ask.......
Yep. I'm expecting John Kerry to chime in any moment and claim that this proves he's a better hunter.
We'll a Vice President shot and killed a former treasury secretary once if memory serves. Burr I think it was. But that wasn't an accidnet. The two were having a duel.
You do have to laugh but it's not funny-hehe.
I just checked on the DUmmies. They are actually giddy over there, like this will have some bearing on the overall scheme of things.
Lots of call for his arrest, etc.
sigh
LOL on the Secret Service guys. On-the-job training.
Thanks :-)
ROFL!
This is deserving of a well-constructed Haiku. I'll get on it after fixing the car.
Is it me, or are the high profile incidents like this usually bird hunters. I remember a political "shooting" couple years ago in either Wisconsin or the Dakotas, and I think a prominent B-ball coach shot someone in the behind a couple years ago as well. And I remember Kerry's screwy hunting photo ops last election cycle. His purple hearts too, which this fellow has exceeded, but that's a different question. I know nothing about this fellow, but I can't help but wonder if they're just hauling friends out who've no interest in hunting, rather being with the VP. Then again, maybe deer hunters are just smarter. Can you imagine a Presidential candidate doing a photo op over his most recent buck? TR, where are you.
They must be torn between blaming the gun and blaming Cheney. And how to work in Halliburton? (sarcasm off)
Yep. I got a sick feeling in my gut when I read about this accident. I'm sure the MSM, Peta, and liberals around the world are slobbering all over themselves over this.
You mean the same ones who only think that the government (and by extension, government officials) should be the only ones to have guns.
LOL! Does it come in yellow? :-D
Well, he took rice in the butt, and has a medal to prove it.
The point of showing us this was to teach us to never swing your shotgun while in the close proximity of another hunter. That's why I was surprised to see that Cheney violated this basic rule.
Because the MSM is calling all the "shots"? ;)
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