Okay, they've finally got my interest

I've so far stayed away (to the extent it's possible) from the "Cheney-shot-an-old-man-in-the-face" story, including the odd sequence by which it was reported, but these latest two observations have me wondering.
First, why didn't they have Whittington airlifted from the accident site to a hospital? As this post points out, choppers are on standby whenever Cheney's at large, and surely if Whittington's wounds were so serious that they in fact did airlift him to a large hospital within minutes of his arriving--an hour after the accident, by ambulance--at a local hospital, why didn't they airlift him in the first place?
Second--and the possible explanation for everything: the shooting and the various delays afterward--is that Cheney was intoxicated by the mixture of drugs and alcohol. He admitted to having "one beer" at lunch (Who in the world has one beer? How many times have cops heard, "I just had one beer, officer"?) Cheney has to pop so many pills that his "one beer" could well have affected his shooting and/or his judgment. To race to the microphones immediately after the shooting would have been impossible.
I have one more observation. There've been raised numerous questions about the "30 yards" between Cheney and Whittington when the shot was fired, focusing on the severity of the wounds and the scattering of the buckshot at that distance, opining that at thirty yards the shot would have been more widely scattered and would not have penetrated as deeply, through clothing, as it apparently did. Interesting, to me, but not conclusive. To me, what's noteworthy is that if Cheney hit a man in the face at thirty yards, he had to be aiming at ground level, not at all skyward. To be sure, quail, when flushed, do fly low, but that low? I think Cheney was shooting at the birds on the ground, that's what. Sounds just like him, just like bombing WMD-less Baghdad.