A Texas attorney who was inadvertently shot by US vice-president Dick Cheney during a 2006 hunting trip – and then apologized to him for the attention the accident drew – has died.
Harry Whittington was 95.
Whittington died on Saturday morning after a short illness, the Texas Tribune reported.
Whittington was known in his state as an avid supporter of the Republican party, helping build the state’s GOP on a national level, the Associated Press reported. Whittington also worked for George W Bush and George HW Bush during their years in Texas politics before both men became US president.
Whittington made international headlines after Cheney, George W Bush’s vice-president, shot him while quail hunting. Whittington, Cheney and others were hunting on the sprawling 50,000-acre Armstrong ranch after sunset.
Cheney had aimed at a bird but mistakenly hit Whittington in the face, neck and body.
Whittington was rushed to the hospital with several birdshot wounds after the shooting, which was deemed an accident. He suffered a collapsed lung as well as a mild heart attack due to a piece of birdshot near his heart, and he spent a week recovering in an intensive care unit, the Tribune reported.
The accident did not go public until 14 hours after it occurred. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times broke the story after the ranch owner called the newspaper. The White House later confirmed the shooting.
Whittington was largely blamed for the accident. A White House spokesperson said that Whittington had stepped into Cheney’s line of fire.
The host of the hunting group, Katharine Armstrong, noted that Whittington did not make his presence known when he approached a group of hunters after shooting a quail.
Whittington later apologized to Cheney and his family for having been shot. His apology said: “My family and I are deeply sorry for all that vice-president Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week.”
Whittington spoke publicly about the shooting years after it happened. He discussed the shooting and its portrayal in the movie Vice, about Cheney’s role in the Bush administration, in a 2018 Austin American-Statesman interview.
“The script doesn’t attempt to discuss how it happened other than a picture of [Cheney] having a gun,” Whittington said, emphasizing that the shooting was an accident.
“Quail hunting is a fast-moving procedure. The birds fly and you swing on them and shoot the best you can. I had been hunting for 50 years before this accident. I wasn’t exactly an inexperienced hunter, and I’d never seen an accident.”
