johnson mud pump free sample

This is a suit brought by Riley J. Johnson against Noble Drilling Company, his former employer, and its insurer under the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C.A. § 688, and the general maritime law, for damages for injuries received by him while working on a stationary platform located in the Gulf of Mexico on or about November 28, 1964. Petitioner was attempting to punch holes in a can of caustic soda used to treat the drilling mud employed in the drilling operation, and as a result of striking the can with a chipping hammer some of the contents splashed into his eye, causing a severe burn. He has fully recovered.

*106 The evidence shows that Noble contracted with the California Company to drill an oil well on a fixed platform located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, designated as ST-11. The contract itself is not in evidence, but we conclude from the testimony of all of the witnesses that California Company agreed to furnish the S-25 as a tender to be used in support of the drilling rig located on the platform. This vessel was moored or anchored alongside the platform and performed several special functions in aid and support of the drilling of the well, these being: (1) providing sleeping quarters and meals to the employees of Noble Drilling Company who were engaged in the operation of the drilling rig, and to furnish office space for the tool pusher and the engineer who supervised the drilling of the well; (2) it carried bulk mud in hoppers located below decks, chemicals and other supplies used by Noble"s crew in the drilling operation, hence it functioned as a supply ship or barge; and (3) it was equipped with a mud pump and connecting lines through which bulk mud was pumped to the mud tanks located on the platform, where it was treated with other chemicals, such as the caustic soda in this case, and then circulated through the well. The mud pumps and connecting lines through which the mud supply reached the platform were part of the gear and equipment of the S-25 and were permanently affixed thereto.

On the other hand, Noble"s employees were there primarily to operate the drilling rig located upon the fixed structure. They did not perform any substantial duties aboard the S-25 in aid of the special functions of that vessel, but the derrick man was required from time to time to go to the pump room and operate the mud pumps when additional bulk mud had to be sent to the mud tanks on the platform. On these occasions the derrick man would operate the vessel"s pumps until the mud in the tanks on the platform reached the desired weight. While occasionally one of the mud men might be called upon to assist the derrick man in mixing mud aboard the tender, they were usually and customarily employed in the mud room and at the hoppers and tanks located on the platform.

Plaintiff Johnson was working as a mud man when he sustained the injuries of which he complains. He had no regular duties aboard the tender S-25, his work being primarily as a member of the *107 crew operating the drilling rig. As a mud man in addition to mixing caustic soda and other chemicals into the mud tanks, he was required on frequent occasions to take samples of the drilling fluid from the platform aboard the tender for the engineer whose office was located on the ship. When he first came aboard, the barge man told him how to operate the valve system for supplying mud to the platform, but these instructions were given to all new hands in the event of an emergency, such as a blowout or threatened blowout of the well being drilled. He was never called upon to work as the pump operator aboard the tender.

Craig Johnson is the author of eight novels in the Walt Longmire mystery series, which has garnered popular and critical acclaim.The Cold Dishwas a Dilys Award finalist and the French edition won Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs.Death Without Company, the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, won France’s Le Prix 813, andKindness Goes Unpunished, the third in the series, has also been published in France.Another Man’s Moccasinswas the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award Winner and the Mountains & Plains Book of the Year, andThe Dark Horse, the fifth in the series, was aPublishers WeeklyBest Book of the Year.Junkyard Dogswon The Watson Award for a mystery novel with the best sidekick andHell Is Emptywas aNew York Timesbestseller. All are available from Penguin. The next in the series,As the Crow Flies, will be available in hardcover from Viking in May 2012. Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire novels have now been adapted for television in the seriesLongmire. Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five.

I parked the truck on the gravel, pulled out the beer, and walked on the two-by-twelves over the mud that led up to the door. I’d been meaning to get some grass seed, but the snow kept putting an end to that. I pushed the door open and stepped up from the cinder block onto the plywood floor. The place still needed a little work. There were some interior walls but most were just studs and, when you turned the bare bulbs on, the light slipped through the wooden bars and made patterns on the floor. The electricals weren’t done, so I had two four-ways plugged into the box and everything just ran into them. The plumbing was done, but I used a shower curtain as a bathroom door; consequently, I didn’t get many visitors. There was a prewar, Henry F. Miller baby grand that had belonged to my mother-in-law, on which I had been known to pound out a little boogie-woogie, but I hadn’t played it since Martha had died. I had my books all stacked in beer boxes near the back wall and, the Christmas before last in a fit of holiday optimism, Cady and I had gone out and bought a floor lamp, an easy chair, and a Sony Trinitron color television. The lamp and easy chair worked really well, whereas the TV did not. Without a dish, the only thing you could pick up was Channel 12 with snow for a picture and a soothing hiss for sound. I watched it religiously.

I slid behind the wheel of the Bullet and started driving the fourteen miles to town. Durant is situated along the Bighorn Mountains and, because there is abundant fish and game, it’s become the retiree capitol of Wyoming. In Absaroka County, to ignore the octogenarian vote is to pump gas at the Sinclair station for a living. Service jobs are about all there are in Durant, somewhat stunting the younger generation and forcing the majority out by age nineteen; but the retirees keep coming from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, with the odd Texan and Californian thrown in for spice. They come looking for the romance of the west that they had paid shiny quarters to view on Saturday afternoons in flickering black and white. They waited half a century of stamping out automobile bumpers to get their western dream; they paid for it and, by God, they were going to have it. Most ended up picking up and moving out, headed for Florida, Arizona, or wherever the weather was easier. I liked the ones who stayed. You’d see them out after the blizzards, shoveling away, and waving at the Bullet like it was the circus come to town. Hell, I’d stop and talk to them. Sheriffs have to get elected in Wyoming, so we have to be liked. I imagine that, if you had to elect the average police force, the turnover rate would spin your Rolodex.