Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter

AP ^ | 02/11/06 | NEDRA PICKLER

[bayourant]

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.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

So I guess this means that a hunting companion in Cheney's hand is worth two qails for President Bush?

[Sensei Ern]

On a related note, President Bush plans to take Hillary on his next hunting trip...his hunting dog is sick and he needed a replacement.

[Checkers]

NEDRA PICKLER

?

!

If that's her real name...

[Don Joe]

Well, if you don't care that your "opinion" is founded in erroneous information, that's fine by me.

LOL!

How's that old Vaudeville line go?

Oh, right: Vas you dere? :)

LOL!

Unless you have a Sooper Seekrit Nuz Sauce, we're all working off the same "information" -- so if mine is "erroneous", well, then... do the math.:)

As for your tips, you can stick [sic] in your Reality Filter.

Well now there you go with that rude/nasty/personal attack business again. Gauche, gauche, gauche!

Totally nyeh kulturni!

(The only rational alternative to the above train of logic -- and I use the "r-word" with due apprehension -- would be for someone to be an uber-party-loyalist/hack, who will jump to the defense of "The Man" regardless of "mitigating circumstances", and therefore, anyone who in any way challenges the Official Party Spin is marked for attack for his disloyalty. Um, that'd be me, I reckon, :)

[Morgan in Denver]

I like it. Great comment.

[AnAmericanMother]

Actually, when you're bird hunting there's lots of potential for fault. The shooter has to keep the muzzle pointed away from his partners, and not swing across the line, BUT everybody has to keep everybody else notified of their whereabouts. If the victim left his station in the line and moved forward or back, he's supposed to let his partners know. Otherwise, it's as though somebody steps out beyond the firing line on a stationary range -- only more dangerous because there's no set firing line, it's moving all the time.

Things can get pretty exciting when you're quail hunting, you can get really focussed following those little rascals, and if somebody's where he's not supposed to be he can catch a pellet or three, and it IS generally considered his fault. Usually somebody's dog gets way up forward or lags back, and since the shooter's watching the dog, he may move out of the line without noticing.

I don't like to hunt in a crowd, because it's too many people to watch. A lot of times I just work my dog.

[SevenofNine]

That too funny hey one thing for sure Ted Kennedy has one up on VICE president

One kill LOL!

[davisfh]

Interesting! I was stationed at Dreux AB, France, in the late fifties and our wing commander and his deputy were pheasant hunting. The wing commander sighted a pheasant and, as the bird flew by, swung his shotgun in an effort to track the bird. When he loosed his round, his deputy just happened to be in the edge of his pattern and took three or four pellets in his cheek. Fortunately, the wounds were minor and there was no loss of eyesight.

And, as they say, stuff happens. A few people tried to make a Federal case of this occurrence, but it didn't work. Everyone realized that it was nothing more than an accident and we simply moved on.

[Morgan in Denver]

You're right, but that should not stop us from having fun with it and showing how stupid they are.

In this part of the country, it's not as mind-blowing as it might be back east. Let the Democrats rail over it. This will give them something that actually happened to complain about instead of having to make things up.

[Ironclad]

Quail are instinctively, and incredibly, good at evasive action. A bird 20 feet in the air can drop to near-ground level in micro-seconds, and if there's any brush on the ground a hunter can drop the barrel and shoot without knowing at what he's really shooting. It's bad form, and very poor judgement to do so, but it can happen. I'd say its a form of bird denial panic. "It's getting away!" If you don't get your bird when it's well up above you, you just have to forget about it and move on. BTW, what happened to Cheney today is not unusual.

[Graymatter]

My Dad used to shoot 78's a lot. Phonograph records.
Hey, you use what you got. Cheney, he's got lawyers.

[Perdogg]

Actually the man was going to testify about the Eron-Halliburton Hurricane machine. /s

[RebelTex]

Pinging my humor ping list - freepmail me if you want on or off this list.
    (This is usually a low volume ping)

OK guys, let's have your best shot.  Here's mine:

"President Bush calls for increased gun control - - - - - - - - - - for his VP"

LOL  ;^D

[snugs]

If it had been Clinton, Gore, or Kerry on some phoney hunting trip they would have dug up some other poor sucker to take the fall for this.

How true

[Democratshavenobrains]

Yeah, it seems like both of them were at fault. Of course the lefties are too dumb to notice that.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Anne Armstrong, co-owner of ranch, was a Halliburton director when that corporation hired Cheney.

She was also the US Ambassador to the court of St James for Richard Nixon ...

[Howlin]

???

[Morgan in Denver]

Still bitter, huh?

[samantha]

There is only so much you can see with a gun up to your shoulder and your eyes on the sight and the target. That is why they are supposed to signal when they are near,especially if they were not there when the flushing began. He may be the VP but does not have eyes in the back of his head or a periscope that spins around looking for idiots that step in the line of fire.