Cheney victim has heart attack

2006-02-14 21:46

Chicago - Harry Whittington, the man US vice-president Dick Cheney accidentally shot while hunting, had a minor heart attack on Tuesday after pieces of birdshot lodged in his heart, doctors said.

Doctors said there were no immediate fears for the life of the 78-year-old lawyer, who was accidentally shot by Cheney on Saturday during a hunting party.

A spokesperson for the Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial in Corpus Christi, Texas, said the hospital was in contact with White House doctors to discuss the best approach to dealing with the scores of tiny pellets that remain lodged in Whittington's body.

The birdshot "basically has lodged in a certain area causing inflammatory changes".

"When that occurs it causes irritability," David Blanchard, emergency room chief at the hospital, told a news conference.

Dozens of pieces of bird shot - tiny pellets that are about 5mm in diameter - remain lodged in Whittington's body.

"It's more than the finger of one hand, but probably less than 150 or 200," Blanchard told reporters.

Many people can live with pieces of shrapnel in their bodies without any serious complications, Blanchard said.

The problem is that until scar tissue forms there is a risk that the bird shot can move and cause irritation and inflammation, as was the case with Whittington.

"At this point in time, there's no plans to do surgery to remove that bird shot," hospital spokesperson Peter Banko told the news conference.

"It's fixed in the heart at this point in time.

"However, it will require that we monitor Mr Whittington for up to another seven days in the hospital to make sure no more bird shot moves into vital organs, as well as that piece of bird shot doesn't move anywhere else in the heart," the spokesperson said, adding that Whittington was in stable condition.

Cheney shot the prominent Texas lawyer in the neck, face and chest with bird shot as the two were out quail hunting on a Texas ranch.

News of the shooting was first revealed not by the White House but by the owner of the south-Texas ranch, Katharine Armstrong, where the accident took place.

Armstrong spoke to the local newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, which had called her after getting a tip.

President George W Bush's spokesperson, Scott McClellan, as well as Cheney spokesperson Lea Anne McBride insisted that the delay between the shooting and its confirmation by the White House was due to a focus on securing Whittington medical care.

- AFP