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.
Thanks for the ping...
I truly think that Mr. Whittington was probably the FIRST to see the humor at being buck shot....
I love Mr. Cheney...he just had an Elmer Fudd moment.
Well, "sound shot" is a fairly broad category of "slob hunting skill-set". Hear bushes rustle, turn head, see something moving in the brush, reflex shot, *boom*, "you got game". Or something.
As to his skills, well, skills are one thing. Being sloppy is another. Some can know all the rules, and still screw up when the adrenaline gets ahead of the cortex.
The main thing is being enough of a VIP to get away with that kind of "accident".
I've read more "hunting accident" stories than I could possibly recall over the years, and I've never heard of it being "the victim's fault.")
As a rule, the shooter will be very lucky if he walks away from the experience without at the very least a major part of his walking-around-money being shuttled to his lawyer's bank account.
You have to know where they are, even the 78 year olds! They deserve to get to 79.
Since TR, can you or anyone think of a non-bird (to whoever is going to post it, war time humans excepted) hunting photo op by a Presidential candidate? Even an admission of hunting. I'm sure there have been some, Jimmy Carter did everything, but they escape me.
I first read an associated press article today that said:
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.
He was described as in stable condition by Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System in Corpus
Christi.
I immediately thought...."stable condition." Wow, must be pretty serious. 13 paragraphs later, the article says:
"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "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."
"Stable condition," and, "it broke the skin," are hardly the same!
*(&%$#* media!
The DU comments are actually pretty good...
"Probably cracked a joke about Libby." "nawwww ... he said ... ain't your daugther a lez-bean?." "They LOVE killing." " Yeah, it's not the guns that lead to shootings..... it's the f*****g retards that use them. " "What are the penalties for accidentally shotting (sic) someone? I have a feeling Mr. VP will be resigning has a result. " "From what I know about Cheney, this was almost certainly a case of attempted murder (motivated by pure psychopathic behavior), but will there be an investigation? "
LOL. A lot of grunts must be glad Cheney had something better to do during the Nam conflict.
Awwww,
This is my favorite one.
beingthere (127 posts) Sun Feb-12-06 05:26 PM
Response to Original message
1. Better they shoot each other than innocent birds and animals
Dang, I farkled the atrributions!
The first paragraph is yours -- I should have italicized it.
How many other countries have a VP who shoots his friends?
You all best behave.
If Cheney shoots his friends, it must really suck to be his enemies.
Back in the '60s during grad school, I was hunting quail in southern Ohio and a covey took off just in front of me. I followed a bird and my sights came across a classmate's head--just stopped in my tracks and did not fire. I will never forget that.
No, no, no... he shot him because he did not donate enough.
"I have a feeling Mr. VP will be resigning has a result."
ROFLMAO! This upcoming week is gonna be fun, fun, fun! :)
I am here Star was over at the talk show thread but heard about it on British TV.
I believe Leno is off this week due to the olympics
They are going to blow this one up big time...oops! did I say....
BIG TIME!
I'll keep looking. So far, nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Welcome to FR.
"Wow over 10,0000 views I never had that on one of my threads"
Well, it's the VP, Cheney, and a guy possibly getting shot in the butt. How could their not be interest! ;>
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