CNN: "Many of the pellets will be left inside Whittington's body"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Whittington, a prominent Texas Republican, was among a handful of people accompanying the vice president when the accident occurred Saturday afternoon. Cheney visited him Sunday "and was pleased to see he is doing fine and in good spirits," spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.

Peter Banko, a spokesman for Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, said Monday that Whittington was making good progress but was likely to remain hospitalized for another few days. "He is talking, awake, alert and in good humor," he said.

Dr. David Blanchard, the emergency room chief at Christus Spohn, said Whittington was hit by "many, many" pellets. But he said most of the wounds were "superficial at best," and many of the pellets would be left inside Whittington's body. Armstrong said Whittington was about 30 yards from Cheney when the vice president fired. She said Whittington had just shot a quail and dropped back to retrieve it. He was hit upon rejoining the group and "apparently came up unannounced" as Cheney prepared to fire.

Cheney and his wife, Lynne, are longtime friends of the Armstrong family and have often visited their 50,000-acre ranch. When Katharine Armstrong's father, longtime Kenedy County commissioner Tobin Armstrong, died in October, Cheney delivered a eulogy at the funeral, along with former Secretary of State James Baker.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/13/cheney/index.html



Harry M. Whittington

Born: Henderson, March 3, 1927

Education: University of Texas School of Law, 1950

Work: Solo practitioner, Austin

Public service: Texas Department of Corrections Board, 1979-85; Texas Public Finance Authority Board, 1987-1994; Texas Funeral Services Commission, 1999-present (term expires 2007); Texas Office of Patient Protection, 2004-present

Personal: Married to Mercedes Baker Whittington since 1950; four daughters, six grandchildren; member of Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Austin

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/07/17harry.html

[DS1]

1. *sigh* You can't have it both ways

Superficial wounds do not result in shrapnel/pellets being left inside the body.

If they're superficial, you'd be able to pick them out with a coke-spoon, I'm sure Bush has one of those handy.

[Justitia]

2. No kidding! That is pure horseshit. An extended hospital stay too. -nt

[sandnsea]

7. flown to Corpus

40 mile flight from the local hospital to Corpus Christi, 2 days in ICU, extended hospital stay, pellets left in his body. Nothing to see here.

And they tried to make mastectomies outpatient. Christ, a 75 year old friend of mine just had major neck surgery, will need a brace for 6 weeks, and they didn't even keep him overnight. Either this guy is getting care none of the rest of us get, or he's in really bad shape.

[FreedomAngel82]

40. So if they were just "superficial"

why was he in ICU and why is he not going home now?

[liveoaktx]

16. No, you're wrong- my dog was shot a few years ago and there are a LOT

of little teeny shots that go in. They're all pretty close to the top layer of the skin but unless you plan to spend a whole lot of time, you can't get them all out. I took my dog to the vet last year and got him xrayed for soemthing else and he STILL had a bunch of shot in him, and I'm telling you I spent hours taking out those b-bs.

[FreedomAngel82]

41. But why isn't he going home then?

If that's the case shouldn't he be going home tonight?

[lonestarnot]

23. Blame the victim for not prying them loose with his fork! They are!

"unannounced" my ass! Coward Cheney shoots at anything that moves, like my dog barks at the moon.

[Posteritatis]

24. Actually, with stuff like this

it's often better to leave some of them in, at least if they aren't stuck anywhere particularly important. These are birdshot pellets, not slugs or actual bullets, which means there'd be a lot of them all over the place. Going in after each and every one would actually do more damage than simply getting the ones in dangerous places, as many others as possible, and allowing the rest to simply heal over.

If a pellet's pretty deep in, but not stuck anywhere particularly damaging (in an organ, fragmented near a major blood vessel, etc), the body can deal with it remaining there; you just patch anything in the flight path and that's all that can really be done.

I'd be truly astonished if a majority of people who've been on the unhappy end of shotgun blasts (assuming smaller shot and not slugs or buckshot) have all the pellets removed. And I'm pretty certain you probably know people who've got some other small stuff - sand, gravel, whatever - still inside them from accidents in the past as well.

[Beetwasher]

25. Heh, "MOST Of The Wounds Were Superficial..."

Of course, the one's that were serious weren't superficial...Sneaky bastards...Getting hit w/ 50 pellets, I'd imagine most of the wounds would be superficial, but I'd also imagine a few might be quite serious, especially when they hit you in the face, neck and chest.

[TahitiNut]

31. Yep. And at 30+ yards, they wouldn't penetrate very far.

They're exaggerating the distance to make it seem less BIZARRE that Cheney didn't see him before pulling the trigger -- irregardless of leading/tracking a quail. You just don't fail to notice a human being wearing an orange vest within 20-30 yards! Not if you're halfways sentient and sane.

[FreedomAngel82]

39. Really

They really think people are that dumb don't they?

[rkc3]

3. I understand they'll find their way to the surface - even years later.

He might have been shot in the face, but he'll find them under the skin all over his body.

[TX-RAT]

5. Yep

I've been peppered many times, those that penetrated the skin were left there. Some have worked their way back out.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

28. You're a Pepper?

Wouldn't I like to be a Pepper, too!

[DrRang]

4. Mercedes Baker Whittington? Any kin to James Baker? n/t

[never cry wolf]

14. Great Question!

I just tried a google to no avail except she would be of an age group to be a sister. She married in 1950, James gradualted college in 1952. I don't know how to find this out but it makes sense. The powerful, rich and elites do tend to intermarry.

[DemoTex]

6. MSNBC said that Whittington's chest wall was penetrated.

Sucking chest wound (traumatic pneumothorax)? That can certainly be life threatening.

[sandnsea]

9. Yes, a life threatening gun shot

This really ought to be a huge deal. If that guy died, it would be a negligent manslaughter or some similar charge for any of the rest of us.

[Jack from Charlotte]

17. This guy deserves a Purple Heart......

He was shot in the line of duty to his country, afterall.

You're paid to stop a bullet.
It's a soldiers job they say.
And so you stop that bullet.
And then they stop your pay.

[malaise]

57. You called this right since yesterday n/t

[txindy]

8. Well, then, the wingnuts MUST demand answers from the first hospital

My, my. Talk about medical waste! Why did the first hospital send Whittington on to a 2nd hospital with a Trauma Center, wasting everyone's time and resources, if these wounds were "superficial at best?" Why is he still in the Trauma ICU after two days? Why is all of this money being wasted over medical treatments that were obviously not needed?!

What a crock. He's in the Trauma ICU because he has traumatic injuries caused by a careless hunter who just happens to be Darth Fudd.

[ShortnFiery]

10. But he said most of the wounds were "superficial at best,"

That's cool, how about the other wounds that are keeping Whittington in the Intensive Care Unit? Why do we get the information about his MEDICAL condition from "a political spokesman" (the emergency room chief = medical trained but also a administrative political crony) and not from the present Attending Physician?

No shit, if you are presently in the Intensive Care Unit, a "few more" days in the hospital (to weeks perhaps?) are a NO BRAINER to anyone who has been trained in EMT or other of the various medical fields.

[catmandu57]

11. A friend of mine still carries shrapnel

from Vietnam, it's the least of his troubles, I'm sure the situation is the same.

[ShortnFiery]

13. Still being in Intensive Care is getting his family's attention, for sure!

Even wealthy people are NOT kept in the Intensive Care Unit unless their condition is touch-and-go. Remember neo-con speak: MOST of the wounds are superficial. I'd bet big bucks Whittington has a chest tube inserted, et. al. various tubes and monitors hooked-up to his body.

As I stated before, the ICU is NOT a place of rest nor one where patients tend to smoke and joke. What the hell do you think the word INTENSE means?

This man's medical condition needs to be continuously monitored by the press lest the poor elderly gentleman's GRAVE condition disappear from the radar screen. ;)

[Bake]

12. Hmmm ... Whittington's a lawyer

I wonder if he'll file a "frivolous" lawsuit against Cheney.

Bake

[louis-t]

15. 50,000 acre ranch?

What, does he own a whole county? Who needs a 50,000 acre ranch?

[Justitia]

18. Been in the family since 1880s. Land was reward for catching an outlaw.

Armstrong family ranchers also married into the gi-huge-ic and ever more famous King Ranch.

[louis-t]

19. Wow, everything really IS big in Tejas!

[A Simple Game]

21. That's about 83 square miles. n/t

[TX-RAT]

48. 78.125

640 acres to the section.
section = 1 square mile.

[A Simple Game]

53. Duh, your right, I was using 600 acres to a square mile. n/t

[TX-RAT]

55. LOL, seen it right off.

[Xithras]

34. My family used to own a 12,000 acre ranch.

Not so unusual in cattle country, where most of the land isn't particularly useful except as forage. This kind of land tends to be cheap (when my mom finally sold it 10 years ago, it went for about $125 an acre), which is why cattle ranchers own a lot of it. The upshot is that, for the most part, these types of ranches tend to be unfenced and relatively pristine from a natural perspective. Aside from a couple of water wells, our property was entirely undeveloped, with only one narrow dirt road running its length.

Also, it's possible that it may not actually be a 50,000 acre ranch. It's not uncommon for people with smaller ranches to hold exclusive use rights to large areas of surrounding BLM land, and they'll often claim that as part of "their" ranch. I know that in our case we had about 5,000 acres of BLM land (in Nevada) on exclusive lease.

[louis-t]

52. Thank you all for the info

it's interesting to learn about what's 'normal' in different states. I sell Real Estate. Knowledge is power, ignorance is Republican. Did I say that out loud?

[TX-RAT]

46. Ranchers

[daleo]

20. If the wounds are superficial, then why are the pellets staying in?

It seems to me that it ought to be easy to remove pellets from superficial wounds - superficial means "near the surface" after all.

[Xithras]

36. Size of the holes.

Birdshot makes lots of little tiny holes in the skin. To get the birdshot out, they'd have to grab onto them with some tweezer-like device which will almost assuredly be larger than the entry hole. To accomplish that, the doctor would have to make the holes bigger. Since this guy probably has dozens of them in his body, they may have simply decided that it wasn't worth the effort. They won't harm him if they haven't already, and removing them would actually make any scarring worse.

When I was a kid, my brother was shot in the arm by a bb gun and the bb gun moved up to his shoulder in about 20 minutes. In his case the doctors DID decide to remove it, and that tiny bb ended up requiring a 3" incision to remove. I'd hate to think about what this guy would go through if he had to have the same treatment on his head and neck.

[daleo]

43. It sounds like it was a lot more serious than a peppering then.

I think foreign bodies can sometimes interfere with internal structures, as they work themselves about. If any were deformed or shattered on impact it could be dangerous. I think a 78 year old being hit like this will be in a world of hurt. The kinetic energy alone must have been like being hit with a baseball bat.

[cmd]

22. He won't make it through another metal detector and

MRI's are out of the question.

[Posteritatis]

27. Well, an MRI'd remove the remaining ones, anyway... (n/t)

[Xithras]

37. YEOWCH!

The biggest problem is that their direction of exit would be random. The pellets could be pulled through his NECK as easily as through his skin.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

26. The WH prefers "souvenirs" to "shot" or "pellets".

[threadkillaz]

29. Have fun boarding planes in airports now..

Poor guy.

[JHB]

47. Feh! That's what learjets are for, peasant!

Rest assured, he won't have any trouble, at least from airport security.

[WillyT]

30. Can't They Just Turn On A Giant Electro-Magnet And Suck 'Em All Out ???

Or would that hurt?

:evilgrin:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

32. I wonder what the guy's face is gonna look like when this is all done.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

33. Lead or Steel shot?

Doesn't specify. Who wants lead left floating around in the body?!
not healthy.

[Xithras]

35. Lead isn't usually used for birdshot anymore.

A better understanding of lead poisoning has led to it being fairly thoroughly phased out among bird hunters. You can still find it, and there are still some people that use it, but it's fairly uncommon and has been for a couple decades. This guy probably got a face full of steel shot.

[TX-RAT]

45. Your completely back wards on that.

Most pellets are lead, it's when you hunt migratory birds that non-lead pellets are required, and it's not required on all migratory birds. I would be willing to say, 90% of all shot used is lead.

[Xithras]

51. Ah, didn't know that.

I primarily hunt duck (and the occasional goose), so I use all steel shot. Since my friends and family are duck hunters, they all use steel too. I understood that everyone did out of lead poisoning concerns...guess I was wrong :) Quail hunting doesn't happen often in California anymore because quail are increasingly hard to find (primarily due to habitat destruction, not hunting), but every time I've gone I've simply used the steel shot I already had.

You learn something new every day!

[TX-RAT]

54. No prob

Used to hunt Chukkars, not far out of Victorville.You need to come here, we're covered up in quail.

[Xithras]

56. There are still a few parts of the valley with decent populations.

My problem is that I'm a spoiled hunter, living only 20 minutes from the delta marshlands. There are still some areas of the valley that actually do have decent quail populations, but none are anywhere near where I live. When I was a kid we used to go on long walks along the canals outside of town and come home with five or six birds each. Most of that land was semi-marshy lowland that was perfect for quail, but its low value made it a cheap and attractive target for builders. Nowadays all of my childhood bird hunting haunts are buried under subdivisions. The remaining farmland tends to be high intensity agribusiness which doesn't make the best bird habitat, so their numbers around here have plummeted. If I have to get into my car to go hunting, I prefer to concentrate on more challenging (and tasty) targets like duck, goose, pheasant, or bigger game like deer. There are plenty of them around, and I live close enough to their habitat that hunting them is an afternoon trip.

[daleo]

42. I think lead shot has actually been outlawed in Canada

At least for waterfowl. I don't know about Texas. I gather the birds tend to eat the expended shot and poison themselves. That can then bio-accumulate and make humans sick too, especially those who eat lots of wild game. In Canada, some aboriginals eat a lot of game, I think.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

38. Sing it with me now...

"There is always something there to remind me"

:silly:

[foo_bar]

44. like a rolling stone

"One of the surgeons said, `We'll get this BB from near the liver, and go ahead and get that other one at the same time.' The surgeon looked at him and said, `that way we'll kill two birds with one stone.' And he said, "I consider that a poor choice of words.'"

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/13864503.htm

[in_cog_ni_to]

49. Most of the wounds were superficial? Then why

was he in ICU for 2 days?:crazy: I'm sooooo confused.:eyes: Besides that, a freeper nut job, wacko woman, who also like to kill innocent animals and birds, called Washington Journal this morning and said SHE gets sprayed with buck shot ALL THE TIME and all it does is sting a "little bit" and people are making a mountain out of a mole hill.:eyes: Why the ICU then?

LIARS.

[Catchawave]

50. 30 yards ?

Was Cheney shooting birds on the ground? What a "sportsman" :eyes:

From a game farm website:

"We have some of the finest quail habitat in the nation. We offer both guided and unguided hunting for wild birds. In addition, we have a small portion of the ranch that we use to release flight trained birds. This provides the maximum flexibility for your hunting pleasure.

For those hunters that want to take it easy, we will be offering 4 wheel ATV's for travel in certain sections of the ranch."