WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a prominent Austin, Tex., lawyer on Saturday while the two men were quail hunting in South Texas, firing a shotgun at the man while trying to aim for a bird, a member of the hunting party said.
Mr. Cheney, a practiced hunter, shot the lawyer, Harry Whittington, on an outing at the Armstrong Ranch in South Texas. Mr. Whittington, 78, was taken by helicopter to Christus Spohn Memorial Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition in the intensive care unit on Sunday, according to Michele Trevino, a hospital spokeswoman.
White House officials did not release details of the accident. But Katharine Armstrong, who was with the hunting party at the time of the shooting, said that Mr. Cheney, 65, fired his shotgun without realizing that Mr. Whittington had approached the group, hitting him on his right side, on his cheek, neck and chest. The incident, which occurred at about 5:30 p.m., was first reported on the Web site of The Corpus Christi Caller-Times on Sunday.
"It was accidental, a hunting accident," Sheriff Ramon Salinas III of Kenedy County said from his office in Sarita, Tex., adding that the Secret Service notified him Saturday of the episode. "They did what they had to according to law."
The Armstrong Ranch is a familiar hunting venue for Republican politicians, including Mr. Cheney, who sometimes hunts there several times a year. Mr. Whittington is a friend of the Armstrong family and is a frequent visitor to the ranch, one of the largest private properties in Texas.
Mr. Whittington is a former member of the Texas Board of Corrections, which runs the state's prisons, and he once led the Texas Public Finance Authority Board.
In 1999, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, named Mr. Whittington to head the Texas Funeral Service Commission, which licenses and regulates funeral directors and embalmers in the state. When he was named, a former executive director of the commission, Eliza May, was suing the state, saying that she had been fired because she investigated a funeral home chain that was owned by a friend of Mr. Bush.
The suit was settled in 2001, but the details were not disclosed. Mr. Whittington still serves in the position.
White House officials, who did not make public the shooting incident for nearly 24 hours, did not say how Mr. Whittington and Mr. Cheney were acquainted, although both have longstanding ties to the Armstrong family.
Mr. Cheney often goes hunting with other political figures. Two years ago he went duck hunting with Justice Antonin Scalia in Louisiana, a trip that drew criticism because the Supreme Court had just agreed to hear a case involving Mr. Cheney's energy task force.
Anne Armstrong, the matriarch of the family that owns the ranch, is a Republican Party stalwart who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations and also as ambassador to Great Britain. When her husband, Tobin Armstrong, died in October, Mr. Cheney and James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, spoke at the funeral.
The 50,000-acre ranch, which features Spanish-style cottages and usually has a full working staff, was settled in 1882 by a Texas Ranger named John Armstrong III, who passed the land on to the family. It sits near the King Ranch, the legendary property settled by the Kleberg family, also in South Texas.
According to Katharine Armstrong, the daughter of Anne Armstrong, Mr. Whittington broke away from a line of three hunters, including Mr. Cheney, and failed to announce that he was returning to the group. When he approached, Mr. Cheney had already begun to shoot into a covey of quail that was taking off from the ground.
"This all happened pretty quickly," Ms. Armstrong said in a telephone interview from her ranch. Mr. Whittington, she said, "did not announce — which would be protocol — 'Hey, it's me, I'm coming up,' " she said.
"He didn't do what he was supposed to do," she added, referring to Mr. Whittington. "So when a bird flushed and the vice president swung in to shoot it, Harry was where the bird was."
Mr. Whittington was "sprayed — peppered, is what we call it — on his right side, on part of his face, neck, shoulder and rib cage," she said, noting that she, too, had been sprayed on her leg in a hunting accident.
"A shotgun sprays a bunch of little bitty pellets; it's not a bullet involved," Ms. Armstrong said. She said she believed that Mr. Cheney was shooting a 28-gauge shotgun and added that guests typically bring their own firearms.
Mr. Whittington was about 30 yards from the vice president when the shooting occurred, Ms. Armstrong said. Altogether, there were five people in the group. Ms. Armstrong declined to identify the other hunters.
After the accident, Mr. Cheney's medical attendants helped Mr. Whittington, treating his wounds and covering him in blankets so he would not go into shock, Ms. Armstrong said. He did not lose consciousness. She described Mr. Cheney's immediate response to the shooting as "very appropriate."
"He immediately went to Harry's side and was right there and made sure his detail was totally focused on him," she said. "Of course he's very concerned. He's been checking in almost on a minute-by-minute basis."
Afterward, she said, her brother-in-law and another guest went to the hospital to check on Mr. Whittington. The rest of the party had dinner, and Mr. Cheney, who had flown to Texas on Friday night, departed on Sunday.
"Mr. Whittington is fine," Ms. Armstrong said. "He's sitting up in bed, yakking and cracking jokes."
Campaign finance records show that Mr. Whittington contributed $2,000 — the maximum personal amount allowed — to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.
Mr. Whittington has been involved in a long-running dispute with the City of Austin, which is trying to condemn a block his family owns to build a parking garage. He has won several legal victories in the case, most recently last month in the Texas Supreme Court.
Lea Anne McBride, Mr. Cheney's spokeswoman, said, "The vice president visited with Harry Whittington at the hospital today and was pleased to see that he's doing fine and in good spirits." Asked why the vice president's office had made no announcement about the accident, Ms. McBride said, "We deferred to the Armstrongs regarding what had taken place at their ranch."
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