A lifeboat crew from Falmouth evacuated a crew member with appendicitis from a ship five miles off the coast yesterday morning.
The coastguard was alerted just after 4.30am by the Maltese registered chemical tanker Patea.
It has been on passage from France to Wales when its second engineer was taken ill and after a telephone conversation with a doctor it was decided to evacuate him.
He was taken back to the lifeboat station where an ambulance was waiting to take him to the Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske.
