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.
He's a lawyer.
Even if that is true somehow I doubt that's how the media will cover it.
I'm sure it's not the first time a lawyer has been shot, but it could be the only time it's been accidental.
Good gosh they got a million threads over there. The funeralgate thread will now bring up that old ghost have them talking for days
LMAO
hehehe :)
it works :)
now back to the homework.....
If you ever have kids, tell them to avoid Integral Calculus :)
Yes, that sounds like a REALLY close friend of Cheney's! NOT!
Pretty much for the sheer comedy factor. It's like someone spiked the punchbowl at the local asylum.
So rumors that Cheney shot Dan Quayle are wrong?
Does birdshot spray? So you don't have to be directly in front of it to get hit?
Actually- the carelessness was on the part of Whittaker- he neglected to let the VP know where he was...there were several onlookers there at the time..who witnessed the whole incident.
So, there are just 3 questions I have:
1) was the friend a republican or a democrat; and
2) how many birds did Cheney actually kill?
3) was this guy "mocking" him (to kill a mocking bird?)
Sounds as exciting as watching curling.
ROFLMAO. At least this man is still alive!
Damn...too bad he didn't shoot T. Boone Pickens in the butt a few weeks ago when he was in the panhandle hunting......
LOL!
This maybe an American History First......
Nah, Vice President Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton - and it wasn't by accident.
Whittington got behind Cheney without Cheney knowing. A quail was flushed and I guess Cheney turned backwards and fired without knowing Whittington had gotten behind him.
thats usually how that happens
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