Vice President Dick Cheney, in an interview with Fox News, took blame for a hunting accident that left a friend and supporter hospitalized with shotgun wounds, calling the incident "one of the worst days of my life."
"I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," Cheney said in the interview broadcast at 6 p.m. Washington time. "That's the bottom line."
Austin attorney Harry Whittington, 78, remains hospitalized in Corpus Christi, Texas, with wounds from shotgun pellets that hit him in the face, neck and chest. He was listed in stable condition.
Whittington and Cheney were hunting quail on a 50,000-acre private ranch in south Texas when the accident occurred about 5:50 p.m. Saturday. Cheney, 65, said he "had a beer at lunch" several hours before the accident. "Nobody was drinking, nobody was under the influence."
Cheney's comments in the Fox broadcast were his first on the accident since it occurred. White House press officials have faced a barrage of questions about why the incident wasn't reported to the public until the next day and why the information wasn't released by the administration.
Cheney said he had no regrets about his decision to allow his host, Katharine Armstrong, to disclose the accident by calling her local newspaper in Corpus Christi. "I thought it made good sense for several reasons," Cheney said in the Fox interview.
The vice president said Armstrong was an eyewitness to the incident, had grown up on the ranch and hunted there throughout her life, and was an "acknowledged expert" on hunting. Cheney added that he did not have a press aide traveling with him on the weekend trip.
According to Armstrong's account, given to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and in subsequent interviews, Whittington stopped to retrieve a bird he had shot and didn't alert the other hunters that he was coming up behind them. He was hit as Cheney turned to fire at a covey of quail that had been flushed from the brush.
Cheney said he was the only one to blame.
"It's not Harry's fault," Cheney said. "You can't blame anybody else."
Whittington was about 30 yards away with the sun directly behind him when a covey of quail was flushed, Cheney said. The vice president swung around to shoot at the birds and glimpsed his hunting companion as he pulled the trigger.
"The image of him falling is something I'll never be able to get out of my mind," Cheney said. "I fired and there's Harry falling."
Cheney said he ran over to Whittington, who "was lying there on his back, obviously, bleeding." A medical assistant, part of a medical team that always travels with the vice president, ran over and began administering first aid to Whittington within "a minute or two" of the shooting, Cheney said.
"I said, 'Harry, I had no idea you were there.' He didn't respond," Cheney said.
Whittington was taken to the hospital in the nearest town, Kingsville, and then transported by helicopter to the larger facility in Corpus Christi, Cheney said.
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said the vice president's security and medical detail gave aid to Whittington and got him to the hospital by about 6:20 p.m. The local Secret Service office contacted the Kenedy County sheriff about 6:50 p.m., and he requested an interview with the vice president and the rest of the hunting party for the next day, Zahren said.
Cheney was interviewed at 8 a.m., he said.
Whittington was in the intensive care unit of Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi. He suffered a "minor" heart attack Tuesday morning in the hospital, officials at the facility announced. The irregular heartbeat was caused by one of the shotgun pellets — about a 10th of an inch in diameter — migrating and becoming lodged in his heart muscle, Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital, said at a news conference Tuesday.
Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York continued calling for Cheney to hold a news conference to answer questions.
"Doing an exclusive interview with any single news organization is not enough," Schumer said in a statement. "He ought to have one to clear the air not only on this issue, but more importantly on the many other issues that have been shrouded by a veil of secrecy."
Contributing: Richard Keil and Catherine Dodge
E-mail: hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net