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.
Sarah Brady is so tacky!
LOL!
Maybe if you'd quit stalking my every footstep, nipping at my ankles every chance you get, I wouldn't think you were "out to get me"!
Good grief. I would ask "Are you for real?", but I'm afraid of the answer I might get!
You do need to get a life, though! What are you, glued to your computer chair? Seems like any time I post something, you're there, *bam*, in my face, with a snotty reply posted within nanoseconds of my post appearing in the thread.
I'm sure the DSM has a term for that behavior. I'm sure I don't want to know what it is. :)
Bingo.
You say something to me and I reply. That isn't stalking. You clearly have some kind of disconnection with reality.
Troll hunters never misfire. Be warned.
I'll say... I guess responding to posts is now stalking. Talk about "glued" .. or un, or paranoid .. or pomposity with delusions of grandeur, as the case may be.
Please quit stalking me.(/sarcasm)
;)
I was just thinking about your handle. Are you Dick Whittington?
No but I once had a black cat.
Correction: I meant Harry Whittington. I should at least get the geezer's name right, after all he's been through.
No not him either.
What is the bag limit on lawyers in Texas?
It's still safer than going driving with Teddy Kennedy.
&&
Oh, man, that's a good one!
Am watching Hardball (switching between that and Olympic curling and CNBC). Chris Matthews stated that the gentleman was hit in the face with "buckshot". Andrea Mitchell stated that the shotgun gauge the VP used was a "28 gauge"...
Sorry Don...
Haven't you heard? Physicians always OVER doctor when the
patient is high profile. This man is older. The press would be
relentless should Whittington leave the hospital with so much as
a hang nail. Cheney's people are under pressure to take extreme
and profound care. Thus... we have an extended and "cautious"
stay at the hospital. (MHO)
That is ALL!
See Post #958 in response to Don Jose's Post #939.
Should have included you in the "To" list.
BTW, surprise. CBS is leading with the story on the nightly news.
So much media hullabaloo that the press didn't know for 24 hours.
Maybe they should contact Teddy for a statement.
At least Whittington will walk away from the incident.
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