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.
Yep.
yeah :o)
been there done that
All I said is that there is no legal liability here because of the doctrine of Assumption of the Risk. Everybody who shoots quail knows that accidents like this happen -- often through no negligence on anybody's part. Knowing this, if they hunt anyhow, there's no actionable negligence.
I don't think you'd be happy hunting with our club anyhow.
And you're the one who kept passing snide remarks about the VP getting out of something, not I.
I wasn't being sarcastic. Was I supposed to be? I take gun handling very seriously and I'd like to know what happened.
LOL. Thank you.
I was on the other end of "whoops sorry hold my beer"
Fire Aim Ready
Love that Kerry caption, eh?
Now, this is unique.
You don't know me, I don't know you, yet, you take it upon yourself to crawl out from under a rock to take a cheap shot at me for no rational reason at all.
Get a life.
Hunting quail is not the same as moving in a line as one would hunting phaesant.
Just keep the faith. Vice Preisedent Cheney knows gun safety and he most likely did nothing wrong. Wait for more information before assuming he was wrong.
Look man, I wasn't the one claimed to put information through a "reality filter". What did you expect people to think about that fool?
You got that right. Kevlar cramps my style.
As to your argumentum ad nauseam vis-a-vis "no liability" for shooting someone, I've already popped that ballon, but you keep trying to loft it. Knock yerself out.
Sorry.
I have a bad habit of shooting off at the mouth when reading these posts, without really reading them.
They should pass a law mandating a waiting period before you post (just kidding).
Maybe they need to stay away from this place...Bush Sr blasted a feelarc there and made the news as well
Well, the thing is, you know that is exactly what was running through his mind at the time the shutter snapped.
Time for a bowl of venison stew....
Did he get the quail too?
You're still wilfully misunderstanding my point. But that seems to be your style.
Suit yourself.
No problem. And watch out for your dog. It is a real shame, but lowlifes will steal a good hunting dog if they can.
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