Vice President Dick Cheney|dick cheney wheelchair|dic cheney inauguration|Dick Cheney in wheelchair for inauguration

Dick Cheney, known to the Secret Service and his critics as "Angler," reviled by the left as the Darth Vader of the Bush administration, survivor of enough heart ailments to keep a medical practice in business, spent his last hours in power in a wheelchair.

While moving boxes for his move from the Vice Presidential residence, Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back and took the stage in a wheelchair for the historic inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, 2009. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Cheney was helping to move into his new home outside Washington in McLean, Va., when he injured his back. His doctor recommended that he needed a wheelchair for the next couple of days.

For Cheney, one of the most powerful and controversial vice presidents in US history, the muscle pull is the latest in a series of health problems over his eight years as Vice President. He underwent an angioplasty weeks after taking the oath of office in January 2001 and had a pacemaker implanted that same year.

In September 2005 Cheney had an operation for blood clots behind each of his knees, and in January 2006 he was hospitalized for shortness of breath. In November 2007, he underwent treatment for the same irregular heartbeat, which required an electrical impulse to restore the upper chambers of the heart to normal rhythm.

Cheney has said he expects to retire completely from public life after January 20 and return with his wife Lynne to Wyoming following nearly 40 years serving four presidents in Washington, although he said he would maintain a residence in the capital region.