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.
The way they are acting, one would think this was a pre-meditated crime.
Maybe the presstitutes oughts go check to see if Cheney took out life insurance on Whittington.
Or maybe Cheney and Whittington's wife have been getting it on and she is preganant with his child (/snicker).
Gregory on NBC saying why did it take so long for Cheney to disclose the shooting! Geezzzz
Gregory now saying why wasnt the White House Press Corps told...instead of the local paper!
Soap Opera media.
Me thinks we need to go back to when news shows were not
rated. That seemed to be the beginning of sensationalism.
Wasn't that disgusting?
They're overly ambitious---all hoping to get THE story to win a Pulitzer.
I can't wait for the 'new responsible media' cartoon editorials.
Maybe Cheney can declare he has converted to Islam, and he will not tolerate any negative coverage or imagery of himself; that should take care of the problem.
LOL. Good one. We gotta write that down.
Totally...I wanted to shut it off but I had to watch. I switched from the USA Ice skating show to watch that...I was fuming and yelling.
SOAPRAH!
I want credit for this one. It may be my only shot at my fifteen minutes.
This will be a nice test of the media's proclaimed 'newly discovered reponsibility in reporting'......it was an unfortunate accident, I truly doubt any malice was intended; something tells me we'll hear about some Halliburton connection. So much for responsible reporting.
Have at it.(grin)
So that would be .00256 seconds worth of fame.
What a waste of a life.
Their attitude was amazing--- like it was a state secret that was being hidden.
Perhaps this is the latest addition to the FR lexicon:
Soaprah (noun) 1) An overwrought, emotional response to some news item or event. 2) A news item that garners far more attention than it really deserves.
"Did you hear about Dick Cheney's accident...what a 'Soaprah'.
Maybe Dan Rather oughta check this story out (/sarc).
He can come out of retirement to cry for fifteen more minutes of fame.
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