At least 3 hours to get Whittington in the air...

[TomInTib]

Shot shortly after 5 PM
From first phone calls to WH- 7:50 PM
Airlifted to hospital 9:15 PM

They had to have choppers on site. The ranch must have one even if Marine2 wasn't there.

Stabilization, big time.

"Peppered", hell.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. They Took Him To A Small Town Hospital First.

I believe they took him, not to Corpus Christi, but to a smaller town nearby. My guess is that they wanted to keep this quiet, but something went wrong.

They must have airlifted him to the CC hospital, because the smaller one was not equipped to handle his injuries.

[Sequoia]

2. Did he want him dead?

Does any journalist dare to ask that question or is this a tin foil hat question?

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. I think they wanted to make sure he was going to live first

If he died on them, it would open up a whole different kettle of beans.

[madaboutharry]

3. Sure sounds that way.

I think you are correct.

[Trevelyan]

5. Katharine Armstrong who has downplayed the injury as no big deal.

"DETAILS FROM HOSPITAL ON WHITTINGTON'S CONDITION... As Josh Marshall
points out, details on Whittington's condition has so far only been reported by the property owner, Katharine Armstrong who has, by-and-large, downplayed the injury as no big deal."

"Anne Armstrong served as:

a close advisor to President Nixon; President Ford’s British Ambassador; and approved covert actions on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Reagan. A veteran of blue-chip corporate boards, Anne Armstrong was a Halliburton director when that corporation hired Cheney. She is Kay Bailey Hutchison’s best friend...

Katherine Armstrong is the daughter of Anne, and was the one who witnessed the incident, quoted in the stories."

[johnnydrama]

6. the hospital aspect

Isn't something i've seen anywhere in the MSM.

Why did they go to the small town hospital, instead of the larger Corpus Christi one.

One thing i'd like to see is the distance between the ranch and the two hospitals.

If they want to the small hospital, and it's actually further than the major hospital, that is
extremely fishy.

[punpirate]

7. Ambulance services...

... especially in rural areas of Texas, are tied to the nearest hospital. They often aren't permitted to go to any hospital but their own. They called an ambulance from the ranch. It would have been the nearest one available. My best guess, from the conflicting reports, is that the shot from Cheney knocked the guy down and out, they immediately called the nearest ambulance, they got him conscious and applied first aid, and then he's able to get up before the ambulance arrived. The latter part is what Armstrong chose to tell the newspaper the next day.

When he arrives at the county hospital, they do x-rays and say, oops, lot of metal in important places, in a case involving some very high-profile people (in both Texas and nationally) and call for a life-flight helicopter. It takes about an hour to get the helicopter out, transfer the patient, sign off on him and then arrive back in Corpus Christi. That could take a couple of hours, total, between the ambulance ride, initial exam and x-rays, then getting the helicopter out and back.

[okasha]

8. They took him first to Kingsville, If I recall correctly.

It would be the hospital/ER closest to the ranch. CC/Christus Spohn is a major medical center, but it's thirty miles or so further up the coast

[librechik]

9. maybe, but usually they do that in the ambulance/chopper

the delay may have been caused by something else--they probably panicked and tried to decide what to do???

there were doctors on site. So medical decisions were made on site. They might have had him nice and stable (as they claimed at the beginning)and so then spent a while pondering the legal/political implications before making a move. At the time Whittington didn't seem seriously injured--they wouldn't have known about the deeply embedded shot. However, they must have known about the possibility of complications of some sort, with an elderly victim, so the docs would have been itching to get him to a facility where they could have serious resuscitation and anesthesia and do tests.

Eventually somebody asked the most important man in the country for his opinion: Karl Rove.

Rove told them, no problem, just get the guy medical attention and I'll take care of all the details.

Rove then proceeded to Cheney Cheney, and said nothing until cries of protest came from the suffering press. Meanwhile nobody paid attention to Rove's client's Huge Katrina F*ups and instead gleefully obsessed over The Hunting Party.

Big Win for Rove/Bush, and not a numbers problem because everybody hates Cheney anyway, and he has no heart so he can take the heat.

Eventually though, all the stalling will catch up to them, and somebody is going to pay a price. How does Cheney like being F*d by Rove? Maybe they'll throw each other under the bus.