This afternoon, Reuters news service is reporting that Harry Whittington, the man accidentally shot by Vice President Dick Cheney, has now suffered a heart attack. The story states that the attack occurred “when some of the birdshot migrated close to his heart.”
The AP reports it this way, ''Some of the birdshot appears to have moved and lodged into part of his heart in what we would say is a minor heart attack.''
I doubt that there is any malicious intent in these stories, or in the statements coming from the hospital in Corpus Christi that they are based on, but they are erroneous. A “heart attack,” or myocardial infarction, occurs when one of the arteries in the heart suddenly occludes, causing the death of cardiac tissue. This, clearly, is not what is happening.
A buckshot could only cause a myocardial infarction if it severed a coronary artery while passing through the body, which would mean death in minutes, or if it came to rest directly on top of a major coronary artery and occluded it, which is about as likely as a flipped coin landing on its edge and staying there as neither heads nor tails.
What may have happened is that the pellet lodged close to the heart, resulting in local irritation (called pericarditis), and that inflammation has aggravated an underlying heart problem, thus giving the patient symptoms. The problem with this theory is that it is me speculating. It is impossible to know unless someone involved issues a more accurate statement.
Why does it matter? It just makes me wonder: If I can pick up errors in medical reporting as often as I do, how many errors am I missing when I read topics I know nothing about?