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.
Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than Dick Cheney's gun!!!
I didn't use the term "dude" lightly...lol. It happened at a flighted duck club, where "dudes" were given shotguns and put into a blind and told that the ducks would be flying over. My dog was working that day with my father, and I'm glad I wasn't there. He was even an orange colored Cheasapeake.
There was a redneck I knew who accidentally-on-purpose shot a turkey with a .30'06. Killed, cleaned and gutted in one operation - nothing left but two drumsticks and two wings.
Yes, but Mr. Cheney knows how to take care of THEM!!
I don't know where you got your information, but you are absolutely 100% wrong on that. If a hunter accidentally shoots someone minding their own business in their yard, they are civilly liable, and in all likelihood criminally liable.
"Report I got was Cheney hit a friend of his with some shotgun pellets while trying to shoot a bird. The person that was shot is ok and sitting up, so its not a bad injury."
Was his friend a democrat? :)
Come to Georgia and go dove hunting. "Peppering" happens all the time. If the action slows down some of my buddies will start "mortoring" each other.
If I am driving a car and you run out in front of me leaving me no time to swerve or brake to avoid you, who is to blame. That is correct, you are to blame. If I am firing at a target and you walk into the line of fire leaving me no time to react to save your sorry butt from getting hit, who is to blame? Rightttttttt.
Well, you sure did explain it better than I did. I was TRYING to 'splain it!
Sorry sweetie, I don't believe that people who live at what I believe you called the edge of the woods are at risk from legal hunters.
Half my life (mostly month by month, not ten years here, ten years there) has been spent in the woods, actually on the edge.
No risk.
You need to demonstrate that your "knowledge" is superior to my "ignorance".
Facts, hunting accidents. Every state keeps them. Back you charges up.
That dang redneck Cheney!
I won't. I've been motored once by a squirrel hunter. He politely acknowledged his error when it was pointed out.
No way. Chuck Norris sneezes shotgun pellets.
The dove bird mauever I've come most to appreicate is when one's flying hard, you've swung onto it, then it does that quick little mid-air dip, just as you pull the trigger. Hunting with an auto gives you another shot, or two, but they do get more out of range each second, and it is a kind of a funny feeling, when you're left standing there with an empty gun and no bird.
I've seen some loaded question in my time, but...are you SURE you aren't a push-pollster?
On a moe series not, DID HE ALSO GET THE DAD-DURNED BIRD?
Chuck Norris would give the pellets a good roundhouse kick if they even thought of bugging him.
I replied motored, meaning mortored.
Glad y'all like it. The original has President Bush and SecDef Rumsfeld. But this Cheney "event" demanded the joke be slightly amended in order to beat the Usual Lefty Whinging. ;>
It was probably only #8 shot - no biggy
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