WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday that he accepted full blame for accidentally shooting a hunting companion over the weekend, breaking silence over the incident since Saturday.

    Calling it "one of the worst days of my life," Cheney admitted on the Fox News TV channel that "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry."

    Cheney said he saw 78-year-old Harry Whittington fall to the ground after he aimed at a covey of quail and pulled the trigger. "The image of him falling is something I'll never ever be able to get out of my mind," he said.

    "I fired, and there's Harry falling. It was, I'd have to say, one of the worst days of my life at that moment," he said.

    The vice president also defended his decision to let Katharine Armstrong, owner of the ranch where he was hunting with Whittington, to make the story public.

    Cheney said he agreed that Armstrong should make the story public because she was an eyewitness and because she was "expert in all of this" as a past head of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and agreed with her decision to choose a local newspaper to publish the story.

    Whittington, a lawyer, was shot accidentally by Cheney during a hunting trip last Saturday. He suffered a minor heart attack Tuesday and some birdshot was found lodged in his heart.

    "He's doing extremely well right now," Peter Banko, administrator at Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi-Memorial in Texas, where Whittington was being treated, said Wednesday.

    Cheney has been cleared by local officials of any wrongdoing inthe shooting accident. The Kenedy County Sheriff's Office near the ranch has said investigation showed there was no alcohol or misconduct involved in the incident, which "was no more than a hunting accident." Enditem