June 30, 2016

On February 11, 2006, then U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney shot Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney, while participating in a quail hunt. Cheney was hunting quail at the Armstrong Ranch in Texas with Whittington when he accidentally fired his gun at the lawyer, hitting Whittington in the face, chest, and neck with hundreds of pellets. Whittington was taken to the hospital for treatment, and three days after his arrival suffered a minor heart attack from a pellet lodged in his heart. Cheney is one of only two Vice Presidents to shoot someone while serving as Vice President, with the other being Aaron Burr. In Burr's case, he fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton during their 1804 duel. Cheney said in his memoir that “the day of the hunting accident was one of the saddest of my life.”