Cheney Shooting Victim Nearly Died

WaPo:

Paramedics rushed the bleeding and unconscious Whittington to a hospital in tiny Kingsville, Tex. Doctors deemed his injuries serious enough to transfer him via helicopter to larger hospital in Corpus Christi, about 40 miles away.
....
The shotgun sprayed upward of 200 birdshot pellets at Whittington, causing scores of wounds. His facial lacerations were the most dramatically bloody, but the injuries to his neck and chest were the most serious. Four days after being hit, the birdshot near his heart prompted it to beat erratically, forcing him back into the intensive care unit. Doctors said Whittington suffered a mild heart attack; he thinks it was something less, a heart "event."
Still, the injuries were more dire than previously disclosed. Whittington suffered a collapsed lung. He underwent invasive exploratory surgery, as doctors probed his vital organs for signs of damage. The load from Cheney's gun came close to, but didn't damage, the carotid artery in his neck. A rupture could have been fatal, particularly since it took the better part of an hour to transport him from the vast Armstrong ranch to the Kingsville hospital.

Note that many gunloon bloggers trivialized this.....