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.
lol oh my god the DU boards are about to shut down in overload soon lol
LOL!
The media will be hyperventilating over this as they too are tired of talking about the snow.
NP , I have a screen name there! :-)
Those wacky vice-presidents, eh? What vice will they come up with next?
If you'd like to be on or off this Upper Midwest outdoors list, please FRmail me.
latest dummie thought
Bumblebee (1000+ posts) Sun Feb-12-06 03:08 PM
Response to Original message
84. He probably killed the guy and it took them 24 hours to find a double...
Nothing would surprise me any more...
I'd like some more details because I don't think there's anything funny about an accidental shooting. It generally means someone was careless, doesn't it?
Every Dem in the house is going to get flooded with emails demanding impeachment hearings immediately.
Nam Vet
Thereby showing that they understand neither the word "murder," nor the word "attempted."
At least Cheney didn't turn to shoot a giant, vicious, attacking jackrabbit.
LOL! Those loons are priceless!
Okay,
I normally can't stomach DU, but I think I'm going to have to go there now for the comedy.
It's okay.
He shot a lawyer!
Other than the paper wad, what would he have been hit with besides pellets?
lol yeah i do too. I decided to do some mole work today for the first time at DU after seeing it on conservative underground. actually its been fun the Iran thing has got them sort of divided. it isnt as easy to quell dissent over there today
Bumblebee (1000+ posts) Sun Feb-12-06 04:08 PM Response to Original message 84. He probably killed the guy and it took them 24 hours to find a double... Nothing would surprise me any more...
Well, if you're quail hunting, you're not using slugs. And as far as 'spraying,' a shotgun produces a shot PATTERN.
These reporters are morons. They would know the difference between a sling-shot and a shotgun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.