Heart pellet ends Cheney 'joke'

Dick Cheney has pheasants in his sights on a shoot in South Dakota. File picture / Reuters

WASHINGTON - "We can't get bin Laden, but we nailed a 78-year-old attorney," comedian David Letterman said on his CBS Late Night Show. Yesterday the joke suddenly became a good deal less funny.

Harry Whittington suffered a minor heart attack after being peppered with gunshot by Vice-President Dick Cheney on a quail hunt in Texas.

Doctors at the hospital where the veteran Republican lawyer and activist was rushed after the weekend accident said a 5mm birdshot pellet moved and lodged in part of his heart, causing an atrial fibrillation.

Whittington underwent a cardiac catheterisation and remained at risk.

David Blanchard, the Corpus Christi hospital's emergency care chief, said Whittington suffered "a silent heart attack" that lacked many of the typical symptoms.

Though Whittington was apparently fully alert and in good spirits, he was moved back into an intensive care unit where he will be monitored for a further seven days.

The pellet for now at least will be left in place. "He can live a healthy life with it there, he's not had a heart attack in the traditional sense," said Blanchard.

But Whittington's age is a complicating factor, medical experts said.

Even before the latest developments, the Vice-President's unloading of a cartridge of 28-bore pellets - an estimated 200 - into the face and torso of his friend and fellow hunter, was the continuing talk of Washington.

The White House press corps has been up in arms and late night comedians have material to keep them going for months.

The shooting, it is clear, was an accident. Hunting experts mostly agree that the fault belonged to Whittington for not telling his fellow hunters exactly where he was.

The Texas authorities issued a report blaming the incident on "a hunter's judgment factor".

But Cheney failed to honour the first rule of hunting, as posted by the National Rifle Association and other pro-hunting groups: Be sure of your target and that you can fire safely into the area beyond it before you pull the trigger.

Cheney is unlikely to face any criminal charges because law enforcement officials have found no evidence of wrongdoing.

"It's a straight-forward accident. The facts are not going to change," said Tom Harvey, a spokesman for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

"There's not going to be criminal wrongdoing."

The affair will claim its niche in history.

It is apparently the first time a sitting Vice-President has shot a person since July 11, 1804, when Aaron Burr killed statesman Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

- INDEPENDENT