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.
Always heard that many a good pointer...has a bit of lead in it's tail.
Cannot tell....who's to blame here..or if there is blame to be had.
All that being said.....one needs to know one's field of fire.
Burr had better aim.
OMG, you're right.
Was it a cartoon protestor?
Aaron Burr.
Vincent Foster? Oops, that was the co-President doing the shooting, not the VP, and it was intentional and not accidental. Never mind...
Dan Quayle must have seriously ticked off the GOP leadership.
No, I think its was some guy named "Clymer".
"Big Time" is his nick name.
PETA will be happy the bird was spared.
Oh swell, now he's hunting former VPs?
Regardless of what you might think about Dan Quayle, shooting him with a shotgun seems a little extreme.
All ready the Du dummies are going wild the latest is
"i have no sympathy for anyone who gets shot during a hunting
trip. i have families of quail that come across my property. how anyone would want to shoot a defenseless bird or animal is beyond my comprehension. we also have bunnies -- we feed them 2 sliced apples every day. it's like they've become our pets. they don't even run anymore. when they see us start to throw the apple slices they run toward us. we also keep a large pan of water (not too close to the house because of the coyotes) for the animals to drink. "
LOL..I really did that?
QUAIL... I really CAN spell...
Snork
They use a potatoe gun. (Sorry... couldn't resist!)
Cheney tried to shoot a bird
Nope. Aaron Burr.
I just saw this on the news and couldn't believe it!
***
President Bush and VP Cheney are sitting in a bar.
A guy walks in and asks the barman, "Isn't that Bush and Cheney sitting over there?"
The bartender says, "Yep, that's them."
So the guy walks over and says, "Wow, this is a real honor! What are you guys doing in here?"
Bush says, "We're planning WW III."
And the guy says, "Really? What's going to happen?"
Bush says, "Well, we're going to kill 140 million Muslims and one blonde with large tatas."
The guy exclaimed, "A blonde with large tatas? Why kill a blonde with large tatas?"
Bush turns to Cheney and says, "See, I told you no one CARES about the 140 million Muslims".
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.