Seven Hundred EightyEight in the
Famous People (FP) Series -
Harry Whittington |
 |
| A series caches dedicated to those who have enjoyed 15 seconds of fame. |
Harry M. Whittington is an American lawyer, real estate investor, and political figure from Austin, Texas.
On Saturday, February 11, 2006, at approximately 5:30 p.m., Whittington was accidentally shot by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney during a quail hunting trip, at a ranch in south Texas owned by Katharine Armstrong. Most of the damage from the shotgun blast was to the right side of his body, including damage to his face, chest, and neck. He was taken to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital by ambulance. The accident was not announced in the news media until the White House confirmed the incident to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times approximately 12 hours after the incident.
On February 14, some of the lead birdshot lodged in Whittington's heart caused a minor heart attack. Doctors did not plan to remove all the pellets from Whittington's body. They estimated that there were "less than 150 or 200" pellets lodged in his body immediately after the shooting, and about 30 pieces of shot will remain inside him for the rest of his life.
On February 17, Whittington made a public statement that "We all assume certain risks in whatever we do. Whatever activities we pursue and regardless of how experienced, careful and dedicated we are, accidents do and will happen." After being released from the hospital, he apologized to the Vice President and his family: "My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this week."
Following the incident, Whittington returned to private life and refused many media offers for interviews. In an October 2010 issue of the Washington Post, he broke his silence about the shooting. Whittington told the paper that although many media outlets had described Cheney and him as "good friends", the pair had only met one another three times in 30 years, and had never been hunting before. The paper also reported that Cheney has still neither publicly nor privately apologized to Whittington for the shooting.
All caches in this series are located on City Of Mesquite property. Highly recommend using the parking coordinates and doing the caches in numerical order. There are 10 caches total plus 1 bonus cache. The coordinates to the bonus cache are posted in only 1 of the caches so check the lids carefully. Round trip hike could be a short as 2.5 miles and there are no trails to speak of. Some ATV trails may come in handy occasionally, but best bet is to pretty much follow the little red arrow between caches. Download the track map to follow the route that was used to place the series.
Avoid the use of acronym only logs and cut 'n paste logs. You must sign the log to claim the find. No exceptions, no excuses. Blank logs may be deleted without notice.