Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist of Cheney’s for 27 years, and a friend, spoke first. Cheney suffered his first heart attack at the age of 37, during his first campaign for Congress. 

Reiner said that Cheney’s doctors at the time wanted him to quit the campaign trail. 

“They didn’t know Dick Cheney. Or more likely, maybe they did know Dick Cheney, and no one had the guts to tell him to quit.” 

Reiner joked he doesn’t do funerals often. 

“No one wants a doctor who’s great at funerals,” Reiner said. 

On Sept. 11, 2001, after Cheney had undergone blood work, Reiner got a call that Cheny’s potassium was dangerously, potentially lethally, high. 

“But the vice president firmly said ‘No, not today,'” Reiner said. 

Reiner said Cheney was always the calmest person in the room, even as he was laying dying in the hospital in July 2010. Cheney later said he thought he would die, and was ready. 

“He never looked over his shoulder. He only looked ahead,” Reiner said. 

Cheney ultimately received a heart transplant, a gift that gave him many more years to watch his grandchildren grow up.