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.
thats hillarious DU is the best when its in its out of control mode
LoL
yeah this one is cute. Charming people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2103377&mesg_id=2103403
20. V.P. Cheney should go hunting more often with President Bush: You know, like good buddies.
Thank the Lord, ClinToon is an attention whore.
Yeah. you know with bird hunting this stuff happens if one isnt careful. Thank god they were not deer hunting
Seriously?
ROFLMAO! (Yes, I got it!)
a lawyer huh are they sure it was an accidental shooting ?
I'm sure there are at least a dozen threads on DU explaining all this....
. Hope the State of Texas revokes his hunting license (from DU)
Oh paleeezzeeeee!!!!
ping
-PJ
OTOH, every "sportsmen for Bush" person will say to him or herself, see, the VP really does go hunting and they'll understand better than anyone that accidents happen.
So let the moonbat gun control nuts rant and rave. All that will happen here is that real people will be reinforced in their belief that Bush and Cheney are real people, too.
I don’t know a lot about hunting, having never been myself, but isn’t a sort of cardinal rule to always know where your companions are before taking a shot?
I’m not implying it was the Vice President’s fault as his friend might have been in the wrong place – isn’t that called being down field? You hunters out there will correct me if I’m wrong.
VP and lawyer were arguing over the lawyer's billing rate.
hooboy the dims are gonna go nuts
Cheney needs Eddie the Eagle.
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