Cheney injures fellow hunter

WASHINGTON – A hunting companion of Vice President Dick Cheney was recuperating from shotgun pellet wounds to his face, neck and chest Sunday after Cheney accidentally shot the man in a weekend quail-hunting trip on one of Texas’ biggest ranches, according to the ranch owner and the vice president’s office.

Harry Whittington, 78, an Austin, Texas, attorney, was “alert and doing fine” after Cheney inadvertently “peppered” Whittington with birdshot Saturday afternoon at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, according to friend and ranch owner Katharine Armstrong, also one of the leading fund-raisers for the Bush-Cheney election campaigns.

Whittington was in stable condition at a hospital in Corpus Christi on Sunday. Cheney, an avid outdoorsman who had hunted at this Texas ranch before, visited Whittington at the hospital on Sunday before returning to Washington, according to Lea Anne McBride, spokeswoman for Cheney.

“The vice president has spent time with Mr. Whittington, visited with him this afternoon,” McBride said.

Cheney, Whittington and another hunter had gotten out of a car to shoot at a covey of quail around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Armstrong.

After Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in tall grass, Cheney and the other hunter – whose name was unavailable – moved to another spot. Cheney turned to shoot a bird as Whittington “came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn’t signal them or announce himself,” Armstrong told the Associated Press.

“The vice president didn’t see him,” Armstrong told the AP. “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. … It broke the skin. It knocked him silly.”

Cheney had a medical team at the ready – one always travels with the vice president – and the vice president’s medical vehicle took Whittington to the hospital in Corpus Christi.