Dr. O. Wayne Isom, the chairman of heart and chest surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College, said it was unlikely that a pellet would migrate to the heart through the bloodstream, as some have assumed from the account of the Texas doctors.So the pellet did not migrate through the blood system to the heart.
The reason, Dr. Isom said, is that the pellet would have to enter a vein, travel to and through the lung vessels that go to the heart, and then lodge in heart tissue, not in one of its chambers. The pellets were approximately five millimeters, about the size of a BB, and larger than most blood vessels, said Dr. David Blanchard, director of emergency services at the hospital.
A more likely explanation, Dr. Isom said, is that the pellet lodged in or touched the heart when Mr. Whittington was shot.
So the question is, how close was Cheney to Whittington when Cheney shot him? The reports have rather consistently said 30 yards.
Not a chance. This pellet went through a heavy Winter coat, then through Whittington's skin and muscle, between his ribs and lodged near his heart. 7 1/2 shot from a 28 gauge shotgun could not possibly have enough power to penetrate all that deeply at 30 yards.
Obviously Whittington was much closer to Cheney than 30 yards when Cheney fired. This is an attempt at media manipulation by the Cheney protective society.
Another point. I have seen a lot of news reports that claim it was Whittington's fault for not letting Cheney know where he was. Sorry. That is a no-go.
The man firing the weapon has the absolute responsibility for ensuring that he is firing it safely. The victim of the shooting shares none of the responsibility unless he is threatening the shooter. If that were the case, Cheney's Secret Service Officers should have shot Whittington. There is no other exception.
Cheney is entirely responsible for shooting Whittington. Period. All of the strange aspects about this incident come from the Cheney Office and its awkward attempts to manipulate the media reports so that Cheney avoids the blame for what he did.
More interesting information.
According to CNN the doctors have reported that the pellet affecting Whittington's heart measures approximately 5 mm. [See 8th paragraph in the story.] But the news reports all say that Cheney was shooting a 28 gauge shotgun firing 7 1/2 shot. Those pellets are 2.41 mm. There is no 5 mm pellet in any factory load for the 28 gauge shotgun. See Confederate Yankee.
A question.
I am a firearms aficionado, but not a hunter or a shotgun fan. Still, it is my understanding that sometime in the 80's bird shot was changed from lead shot to steel shot because birds tended to eat the spent lead in waterways and then die of lead poisoning. So what, you say?
So a CAT scan uses some rather massive magnets to take its pictures, and steel, unlike lead, is highly affected by magnetic fields. Could this be why the hospital did not use the 64 slice CAT scan? Because it might move the pellet?
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