First Doctors to Treat Cheney's Victim Lost in Press Coverage

In the thousands of stories about Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident last Saturday, nearly lost in the coverage has been any real word from the first two doctors to treat his victim, attorney Harry Whittington, at the first hospital where he received care.

Except for one piece in the tiny Alice (Texas) Echo-News Journal, the two doctors have been missing in the massive coverage of Cheney's shooting at a Kenedy County, Texas, ranch that resulted in serious injuries to Whittington and an eventual heart attack. Yet serious, and not so serious, questions about why Whittington was taken to the first hospital, and then quickly airlifted to another, have been raised for days in many news outlets.

Subnani is a surgeon who was called to the emergency room at Christus Spohn Hospital Kleberg in Kingsville, Texas, where Whittington was taken by ambulance from the ranch. In the Echo-News Journal story, he offered few details about the incident, other than to say he examined the patient, found his wounds to be superficial, and disagreed with the decision to transport Whittington later that night to a Christus Spohn hospital in Corpus Christ, Texas.

Dr. Fred Martin, the emergency room doctor in Kingsville and the lead physician handling Whittington that night, has apparently not spoken to any reporters. He declined to say much to E&P Friday, noting "I would want to talk to Mr. Whittington first. I feel like he has some rights." When asked if he had been interviewed by any Secret Service or other law enforcement investigators about the shooting and its aftermath, Martin declined to comment.

Subnani, however, offered some details about the events that night, saying he was called to the hospital from his home in Alice, about 30 minutes away, shortly after 6:15 p.m. The time of the shooting has been reported as anywhere between 5:30 p.m. and 5:50 p.m. Subnani said he arrived at the Kingsville Hospital at about 6:45 p.m. and Dr. Martin was already treating Whittington.

Subnani said he did not see anyone who appeared to be Secret Service personnel. "There were some plain clothes people and people in hunting gear.

"Everybody was calm, the emergency room doctor [Martin] was nervous, but I did not feel any anxiety," Subnani said. "I did not know who [Whittington] was. [Martin] eventually said he was part of the presidential party, but laughed that he was not the president."

Subnani said he examined Whittington's abdomen and neck and reviewed a CT Scan, determining he did not need to perform surgery.
"He did not look like he needed it, his lung was not collapsed and his heart was stable," Subnani said. "His wife was there and some other people, but I was not introduced to anyone."

He said Whittington remained conscious, "but dazed." He also described his wife as dazed.

Subnani said, before he had even arrived, the hospital had arranged to helicopter Whittington to the Corpus Christi hospital, where he has remained ever since. "They had arranged the HELO-flight before [Whittington] even showed up," Subnani said. "The emergency room doctor had already decided he should be transferred." Subnani said he disagreed with the decision, believing Whittington could have spent the night in Kingsville.

Asked specifically about this, Dr. Martin refused to comment,

"I was not going to question [Whittington's] judgment, though," Subnani said. "He was worried about some of the pellets in the sinuses." He added that the Corpus Christi hospital had doctors better able to diagnose such an ear, nose, and throat problem. "They did not think he should stay," Subnani added, "because this hospital was not really equipped for a trauma case."

That is why some reporters have questioned why Whittington was taken by ambulance to this hospital when he could have just as easily been driven to Corpus Christi right away -- or picked up by helicopter at the shooting scene.

Whittington eventually left the first hospital via helicopter at about 7:45 p.m., Subnani recalled. When asked if Whittington's eventual heart attack indicated that Subnani's original diagnoses that the wounds were not severe was wrong, the doctor defended his determination. "At that age [78], we don't know the extent of his coronary situation," he said. "That is hard to predict, what really caused that arrhythmia."

Subnani added that he has not been interviewed by any law enforcement or investigative agents working on the case. "No one has talked to me," he said.