Cheney accidentally shoots fellow hunter in face

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.\nHarry Whittington, a millionaire attorney from Austin, was "alert and doing fine" in a Corpus Christi hospital Sunday after he was shot by Cheney on a ranch in south Texas, said Katharine Armstrong, the property's owner.\nHe was described as in stable condition by Yvonne Wheeler, spokeswoman for the Christus Spohn Health System in Corpus Christi.\nArmstrong, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Whittington, 78, was mostly injured on his right side, with the pellets hitting his cheek, neck and chest during the incident that occurred late Saturday afternoon.\nShe said emergency personnel traveling with Cheney tended to Whittington until the ambulance arrived.\nCheney's spokeswoman, Lea Anne McBride, said the vice president was with Whittington and his wife at the hospital Sunday.\nThe shooting was first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The vice president's office did not disclose the accident until nearly 24 hours after it happened.\nArmstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shoot at a covey of quail.\nWhittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and discovered a second covey.\nWhittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong said.\n"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."\nWhittington has been a private practice attorney in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He's been appointed to several state boards, including when then-Gov. George W. Bush named him to the Texas Funeral Service \nCommission.\nWhittington owns property in Travis County worth at least $11 million, the Austin American-Statesman reported last year, not counting a downtown block at the center of a long-running dispute with the city over a condemnation issue.\nArmstrong, owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident occurred, said Whittington was bleeding and Cheney was very apologetic.\n"It broke the skin," she said of the shotgun pellets. "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.\n"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."\nCheney is an avid hunter who makes annual hunting trips to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. He also travels frequently to \nArkansas to hunt ducks.\nArmstrong said Cheney is a longtime friend who comes to the ranch to hunt about once a year and is "a very safe sportsman." She said Whittington is a regular, too, but she thought it was the first time the two men hunted together.\n"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.\n-- Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Dallas contributed to this report.