Lawyer Shot by Cheney While Hunting Still Has Shotgun Pellets in Jaw and Gums

[a kennedy]

Dick Cheney is the disaster that keeps on giving.

From a failure to heed warnings about a possible 9/11, to a disastrous war in Iraq, to torture, to breaking the law, to PlameGate...oh so much evil; even shooting a friend in the face who covered for Dick, after Cheney left him bleeding and Dick had a stiff drink.

Well, of all places to discover the current state of the shot attorney, Harry Whittington, it was quite a surprise to see an update in Walter Scott's Republican leaning "Personality Parade" in the Sunday newspaper supplement, "Parade":

Q Did Harry Whittington, the lawyer whom former Vice President Cheney accidentally shot while hunting quail in Texas, recover fully from his wounds?—J.D. Stewart, San Diego, Calif.

A “It took a while, and I still have a lot of metal in me—30 or so pellets, some in my jaw and gums,” Whittington tells us. “But that was three years ago in February, and these days I’m at the gym by 6 a.m. and at my office by 8:30. At 82, I’m still a lawyer and still giving thanks for every day of my life.”

It appears that so many have taken a bullet for Dick, including his daughter Liz (who knows far more about Cheney's actions than she lets on.)

But Harry Whittington, he took a direct hit from Cheney and still has metal in his body to prove it.

Now, that's truly a guy who knows how to literally take a bullet for the Dick.

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/9018

[Botany]

1. If Dick Cheney had not been traveling w/ his medical MASH unit then ....

.... good chance that Mr. Whittington would have gone into shock and died from the shotgun blast.

One more thing Cheney has "walked on." He shot a man after he had been drinking, had a witnesses to the
shooting flown out of the country before talking to the police, claimed he was worried about the victim's
health but never went to see him in the hospital, gave a bullshit story about the accident, and waited more than
18 hours (sober up time) after the shooting to speak to law enforcement about the shooting.

BTW have a hunting accident in OH you will get the ODNR hunting cops, the local sheriff's dept., the State Highway
Patrol if the bullets crossed a major road, and your guns will be taken away from you pending investigation.

[ThomWV]

3. Overreaction

[Lerkfish]

6. on whose part?

[ThomWV]

9. The press and every know-nothing gun-hater on the internet.

[liberalmuse]

15. This is probably the most disgusting post I've read in awhile.

And the gun nuts here wonder why some people are utterly disgusted with them. You go into a thread about a man who was shot in the face to defend your right to have a gun, and who cares about the victim? Fuck the victim. You'd rather use this as an opportunity to rip into people who abhor the gun violence in this country. I'm going to go throw up now. This is sickening.

[MADem]

24. What a crap post!! This has nothing to do with gun HATING.

Many people who own guns and hunt regularly think that Big Dick did exactly what the poster upthread described--got drunk, shot his pal, flew the witnesses out of country, and sobered up before he lied to the police.

Big Dick gave responsible hunters a bad name--as you are doing. Heckuva job, there, Brownie.

[Lerkfish]

32. :confused: cheney shot a man IN THE FACE while drunk, presumably.

I can be pro guns and anti shooting people in the face.

right?

[Missy Vixen]

34. Oh, yeah

Hey, buddy: Why don't you get shot in the face at close range, and then we'll talk about the "haters", huh?

What exactly do we not know about that accident, or the circumstances behind it?

The victim still has shot in his body. Of course, to the gun fetishists on this site, that's no big deal.

:mad:

[bdamomma]

2. I wonder how much hush money was given to Mr. Whittington

by Dick to keep his mouth shut about what really happened that day.

[Lerkfish]

5. LOL no need for money, HE WAS SHOT IN THE FACE

threat delivered.

[peekaloo]

7. He paid him in buck- shot(s).

Now publicly apologize or I'll shoot you again!

[Lerkfish]

4. knowing about the death squads operating in the US, we can NOW understand

how whittington APOLOGIZED to cheney for getting in the way of his gun.

[ThomWV]

8. They were hunting Quail, the shot they were using was #7.5 out of a 28 gage

The man's life was clearly not in danger from the shot, and he was luck for that because if he had been very close it would have been very different. Also the shot itself is so small (and there was relatively little of it) that it would probably be a lot more painful and dangerous to remove than to simply let it stay where it is.

The shotgun itself was a 28 gage, which is the second smallest generally available, and it was shooting number 7.5 shot, which is extremely small shot (0.10" diameter), and the shells held 3/4 oz of the shot, which is a very small amount for any sized shotgun shell.

Shotguns are very much like rifles within a few feet of the barrel because the shot (little round pellets) exits the barrel effectively as a single unit. However the individual pellets quickly spread out in a cone pattern losing more and more energy as they travel from the gun. Very small shot, such as the 7.5 used here, lose their energy quickly in a short distance. I am very much suprised if any penetrated his cheek, the ones in his gums indicate to me that his mouth must have been open when he got hit.

So in short I just wanted you to know, this was a bad thing but it was a small gun shooting a very light load and apparently the poor fellow was some distance away, but this wasn't a case where he was lucky to be alive. Far from it.

[lunatica]

10. That makes it OK then

I'm so glad that there's a difference in what kind of weapon is used when shooting someone in the face while stumbling along hunting for non human game. The fact that Cheney was probably drunk and that the lawyer was a safe distance behind him and that in spite of that he was still shot in the face is not important, right? Why would anyone make such a big deal out of that?

[ThomWV]

14. No it doesn't - and it is asinine for you to even suggest it is

However it is equally asinine for anyone to hype up what was simply an unfortunate accident that took place while two adults were enjoying a sport that is popular around the country and has been for a couple of hundred years. The damage done was no worse than is suffered on high school football fields every weekend and no more sensible or senseless. The problem I have with this string is that it hypes what need not be hyped, it is just pure nonsense that was elevated because of who was involved and public ignorance of the subject matter. Its the public ignorance I'm trying to alleviate here - without much success, but that's because of a hostile audience, not because of the facts.

[lunatica]

20. It was sheer luck that no more damage was done

Even your argument about the power of the shotgun is senseless. What if the lawyer had been ten feet closer and he had been hit in the eyes or straight in the chest? Would we all be overreacting then? Same weapon, same scenario but just bring the victim closer. And you say I'm asinine...

[izquierdista]

11. He was lucky to be alive

Would you want to be near a drunk with a loaded gun?

[ThomWV]

13. Horseshit. It was the smallest shotgun made, had small shot in it, and not much of it.

For christ sakes, he whould have had to shoot him from 5 feet away in either the head or heart to have killed him with that shot and while he did hit the head he was no where near close enough.

A 28 guage shotgun is the smallest shotgun you can get (a .410 shotgun is slightly smaller but its a caliber, not a guage)
They were using extremely small (and low density steel) shot.
The shells themselves were "low brass' and low power
The shotload was three quarters of an oz, roughly one half of what would be used in a real hunting situation.

You getting the point? The guy's life was not in danger. Look, that shot was made to kill small birds, and it won't even do that half the time. If you were hit by that stuff from about 100 feet away it would feel like bee stings, I doubt very much that you could even hit a person with it at 100 yards.

[Jennicut]

23. No one is coming down on hunting in this thread...just coming down

on Cheney for being a cold, heartless bastard.

[MADem]

26. He had BIRDSHOT in his HEART. Good grief, what is wrong with you?

Idiotic posts like the ones you are making make responsible, attentive hunters look BAD. You are defending the indefensible.

The guy's life was not in danger, eh? You mean that fucking HEART ATTACK he had was just a bit of shit-n-giggle? The more than a week he spent in the ICU was just due to "bee stings?"

What a tool you are! You should at least do a little basic research before you pull down your trousers and display your ass to the world!

Read, learn, feel shame (if you are capable):
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/14/cheney/index.html

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CNN) -- The fellow hunter who was shot and wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney has suffered a minor heart attack after a piece of birdshot migrated to his heart, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

Harry Whittington, 78, is in stable condition in intensive care and will remain hospitalized for up to seven days, hospital officials said.

"Some of the birdshot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart ... in what we would say is a minor heart attack," said Peter Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial. (Watch what alerted doctors to the birdshot in Whittington's heart -- 2:32)

Cheney and Whittington were hunting quail on a friend's south Texas ranch Saturday when the vice president shot and wounded him.

Cheney was told when he arrived Tuesday morning at the White House that doctors had decided, after overnight monitoring, to perform a cardiac catheterization on Whittington, according to the vice president's office.....Dr. David Blanchard, the hospital's emergency room chief, said Whittington suffered an "asymptomatic heart attack," meaning Whittington did not display symptoms such as chest pains or breathing difficulty. He said a roughly 5 mm piece of shot became lodged in or alongside Whittington's heart muscle, causing the organ's upper two chambers to beat irregularly.

Physicians from the White House staff, who helped treat Whittington after Cheney shot him in a Saturday hunting accident, have been consulted on the situation, Banko said.....

[izquierdista]

27. You may know your guns

But as far as medicine, you have recto-cranial inversion. A slight bit of angle higher and that shot could have entered the orbit (eyeball for you ignoramuses) and blinded him. Maybe if you masturbated with your guns less and opened up some medical or forensic texts, you would realize that loaded guns and drunks can cause some very nasty and often fatal injuries.

And you never answered my question: do you feel safe with a drunk with a loaded gun? While you may want to hump with the loaded gun, what about the drunk that is handling it?

[Maru Kitteh]

29. Your knowledge of firearms aside, apparently you are incredibly ignorant in the subject of anatomy

Too bad you can't wag your guns around on the internets to try to intimidate people and show us all what a mighty penis you have what a big man you are.

It's gun owners like you that give me serious cause to reconsider my position on the right to bear arms. I hate guns but have generally supported, with common sense regulation, the right for others to own them as long as they've proven themselves responsible and mentally fit. When I encounter individuals such as yourself I must consider that I may very well have been wrong on this subject.

edit typo

[Paladin]

30. Why Don't You Stop Digging That Hole Of Yours Any Deeper?

You're spewing technical details of the gun and ammunition used, in order to give Dick Cheney cover for an inexcusable act. This is precisely the reason I walked away from the DU Guns forum years ago---gun obsessives giving a right-wing monster like Cheney a walk, after months and months of savaging a good Democrat like John Kerry. Do people like you ever get tired of doing such enormous, inadvertent favors for the other side of the guns issue? Evidently not......

[Lerkfish]

33. ok, you convinced me. So, you stand right here, and let me get my gun.

and I should be allowed to shoot you, ok?

man, you are giving gun advocates a bad name in this thread.

[MADem]

35. You're full of horseshit. The guy spent weeks in hospital, some of it in ICU.

Your "facts" are pulled straight from your ignorant ass on this story.

The guy had a heart attack as a consequence of birdshot entering his heart. They had to do surgery to get it out.

"The guy's life was not in danger." He was a lot closer than the hundred feet away you keep babbling about.

You're several sandwiches shy of a picnic, pal.

[Botany]

12. I have hunted and owned guns for years and the facts of the case ....

.... do not add up.

If a bird flushes behind you you don't turn 180 degrees and shoot behind you.

Shot was found inside his chest close to his heart ..... Dick said Whittington was 30 yards away from him .....
the shot would have had to go through his hunting vest or jacket, his skin, his muscle, and some layers
of internal membranes to reach were it wound up. With as light as the shot was and the laws of physics
telling us that the shot loses energy as a function of distance traveled something there doesn't pass the smell
test.

Even if Cheney's shotgun was shooting at 1/2 a degree elevation if Mr. Whittington had been 30 yards away
as per Cheney then the shot would have passed over him.

With the level of trauma Mr. Whittington suffered and his age the odds that he would have gone into shock and
died are very good had not Cheney's medical team been there.

[Kokonoe]

19. Its the parts 'Dick said " That make no sense. OEM

[Canuckistanian]

18. The man almost died because of a pellet in his heart

Are you seriously trying to say that a small gauge shotgun can't kill someone?

[ashling]

16. How nice -sarcasm- a souvenier from the Cheney Administration

:grr:

[NNN0LHI]

17. Oh, I imagine he will be spitting them out until one of them lodges in an artery

Then he won't have to worry about it any more.

The joys of hunting.

Don

[Beetwasher]

21. The Fucking Guy APOLOGIZED To Cheney After Cheney Shot Him!!!

We'll never know the real story behind that whole, bizzarre incident, but I suspect it wasn't really an accident and Whittington did something to piss off Dick.

[Jennicut]

22. He was clearly afraid of him...nice friend!

[Stargazer09]

25. So, does he still go hunting with Dick?

If that was truly just an accident, wouldn't he still go out with his old buddy?

He might want to choose his hunting buddies more carefully from now on.

[FarCenter]

28. The Cheney Shotgun Experiment

http://www.myscienceproject.org/shooting.html

I don't completely agree with their conclusions. My estimate from the spread of pellets on Whittington's cheek would be that he was shot from around 20 yards. I think that the pellet that lodged in his heart did so by entering the circulatory system from the head or neck wounds.

[laststeamtrain]

31. If he can get them out, he could make a small fortune on EBAY. n/t.