Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/661

 PETEBSON ». THB 0HAND08. 647 �native of Sweden and aged twenty-seven years, ehipped for the voyage as an able-bodied seaman. �Near three o'clock of the morning of June lOth, in about latitude 38 south, longitude 90 west, from Greenwieh, the weather being dark and rainy, with a good breeze, the libel- ant was ordered by the second mate to go aloft and cast off the stop on the foretop-gallant halliards. He went up the rigging on the starboard side to the top, and thence eut on the crane line, and stood or sat upon it — probably the latter — between the topmast and top-gallant backstays, while, •without other hold or support, he untied with both hands the stop, which was about 18 inches or two feet above the line. Just as the libellant finished untying the stop, the line on which he was resting parted at the hitch near the top-gallant stay and preeipitated him to the deck. In falling, he appears to have struek first on one toot on the ship's boat, which was stowed bottom up on the booms just abaft of the f oremast, and then fell over on the deck, striking his head on the pin- rail as he went down. The distance from the crane line to the bottom of the boat on which libellant struek is about 30 feet, and from there to the deck is about 10 feet more. �The alarm was soon given and the man was immediately carried into the house on deck, used as a forecastle, in an uneonseious condition, and bleeding profusely from what ap- peared to be a severe injury to the head. The master was called and came at once to the forecastle, and had the libel- lant stripped and examined, placed in a bunk, and dressed his head. The fall caused a fracture of the collàr bone, and a severe eut in the head, from which the libellant in due time f uUy recovered. It also caused a fracture of the femur or thigh- bone of the right leg a little below the middle of the same. On the next day after the accident the master had the libellant removed into the carpenter's room, and his legbandaged with splints and placed in a box then made for that purpose. There seems to bave been a difference of opinion on board as to whether the leg was broken or not — the mastër's testimony being that he did not think that it was broken until July 4th, when the vessel was in latitude about 2 degrees north and ����