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.
Especially in the picture I saw of him holding Daffy Duck.....snicker! Cheney may well eat the quail. My daughter lives down that way and we go down for White Wing dove hunting. They are delicous!!
Ah, the quaint customs of quail hunting; namely, hunters shooting each other.
Yeah, I guess I'm jes' too much of an ol' redneck for that gentlemanly "sport". (Do y'all dress up in tweeds, like the English anglers do? The reason I ask is that the more I read of the assurances that shooting each other is a normal part of the sport, with NO liability -- except for the shootee -- the more I find that I'm kinda feeling the urge to reach for ol' hip-waders (even if I don't have any "country tweeds" to go with 'em.)
LOL!
Guess what?
Bingo!
I have every bit as much freedom to comment on YOUR noise!
Sauce for the goose, and all that, y'know?
You seem to be quite intent on asserting your "right" to leap out from nowhere and shoot from the lip in unprovoked personal attacks on a complete stranger, yet, you at the same time seem to be oddly offended by the notion that said stranger might want to say a word or two in his own defense from your personal attacks.
I hope this doesn't further offend you, but I must say I find this type of rank hypocrisy to be most amusing!
Let 'em trumpet. They're the ones who've been saying they support guns *only* when used for sport (hunting). What, are they going to back off that now?
What is happening in that?? Did it blow up on him or what, lol?
lol..too bad Cheney did not set his eyes on a liberal austin lawyer...better huntin next time Cheney....LMAO!!!
I don't know the answer to that, and I won't even take a shot. Too gun-shy. Probably because it's a loaded question.
I don't know the answer either, I'll have to take a powder.
. . . I used to work for a highway company . . . and I bet there are a lot of rednecks who've done that sort of work and wound up with chipped, cracked, or "surplus" pipe . . .
Have you seen the cat tree made of the 5 gal plastic sheetrock buckets? Held together with duct tape? LOL!
I'm glad your old Lab boy is settling in. You know he's happy to be in Sailor's Safe Harbour at last.
If I did try to answwr it, I'm sure I'd be off-target.
Looks like someone forgot basic hunting safety.
I don't have a mind of the caliber necessary to buck up an answer myself. I'd certainly quail before anyone else's response.
I don't want to buck the prevailing train of thought because I might ruffle some feathers.
I hope Blur comes back and tries to explain it. I'm sure he'll be a good sport and not try to duck the issue.
We definitely need someone to give us a reasonable explanation. I will not put up with any quackery.
Our local news actually said it as "Vice President Cheney Shoots a Friend, story tonight."
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