Claiming under the Public Vessels Act, Title 46 U.S.C.A. § 781 et seq., and the Tort Claims Act, Title 28 U.S.C. § 1346 (b), the suit was for damages for the death of plaintiff’s wife. The claim was that the death was caused by the negligence of Coast Guard personnel in the conduct of a helicopter air-sea rescue.
The defenses were: (1) that the United States was not liable and had not consented to be sued for the negligence of the Coast Guard in the conduct of such rescues; (2) that the death was not caused or contributed to by any fault, negligence, or want of care on the part of the United States, the helicopter, or those in charge or control of it; and (3) that it was caused by the negligence and fault of the deceased and of the plaintiff, her husband, in not securing her firmly by the straps on the helicopter cable before permitting her to be drawn up.
The evidence concluded, there were findings of fact and conclusions of law1 in favor of, and a judgment for, plaintiff.
*561■ Defendant, appealing from the judgment, is here insisting that the complaint does not state a cause of action and the judgment must, therefore, be reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss, or that at least the findings *562that the Coast Guard was, and plaintiff was not, negligent should be set aside as clearly erroneous.
Appellee, attacking the quantum of the finding and award of damages as inadequate and clearly erroneous, seeks an increase of the award here.
A Careful examination and consideration of the findings of fact, in the light of the record as a whole, and of the conclusions of law, in the light of settled legal principle, convinces us that they are well supported and that, as against appellant’s attack upon them, they should and must be sustained.
As appellee correctly points out, the ease made is not one of omission or failure on the part of the Coast Guard to act, but of a definite and affirmative act causing death, an act deliberately undertaken and negligently performed by it.
Whatever then might be said of the liability of the United States, if the case had to do. with mere negligent omission or inaction of the Coast Guard, as was the case in Indian Towing Co. v. U. S., 5 Cir., 211 F.2d 886, is not controlling here. For the uncon-tradicted evidence shows that the Coast Guard, pursuant to long established policy,2 affirmatively took over the rescue mission, 'excluding others therefrom, and thus not only placed the deceased in a worse position than when it took charge, but negligently brought about her death, and it is hornbook law that under such circumstances the law imposes an obligation upon everyone who attempts to do anything, even gratuitously, for another not to injure him by the negligent performance of that which he has undertaken. 38 Am.Jur., “Negligence”, Sec. 17, p. 659.
As to appellee’s attack upon the quantum of the finding and award of damages as clearly erroneous, we have held in Sanders v. Leech, 5 Cir., 158 F.2d 486, at page 487,3 this court has the power in a case tried to a court without a jury to review findings as to damages. However for -the reasons stated in the Sanders case, we feel here, as we felt there, that we cannot say that the findings are clearly erroneous.
The judgment is affirmed.
Judge RUSSELL sat during the argument of this case but, due to illness, he took no part in its decision.