On Valentine's Day (Feb. 14), a man fainted outside the Tsuen Wan West MTR station. An off-duty healthcare worker tried to apply cardiac compression to him but failed to borrow the station's AED machine; the victim was then hospitalized and confirmed dead later. The off-duty healthcare worker later posted on the Internet that an MTR staff member said "It's none of my business if he's not in the MTR station".
The MTRCL responded to the media today (Feb. 21), saying that the incident occurred in a short period and that MTR staff had tried their best to assist. In the course of handling the incident, during the communication process, an MTR staff member, when confirming the location of the patient, described the incident as being outside of the station area, which may have caused misunderstanding among the help-seekers. Colleagues present at the scene at that time had already tried their best to assist at the station to the scene.
MTR: Misunderstanding
MTRCL said that after checking the records of that day, the Corporation confirmed that a staff member in charge of maintenance had received a request for assistance outside the control room, claiming that a person had fainted at a cab stand outside the station area. The staff member accompanied the caller into the control room of the station to get an AED, while the caller returned to the scene after receiving a report that someone had already arrived to assist the patient. Two station staff followed closely to follow up.
MTR continued that a check of the records showed that the caller contacted the maintenance staff outside the control room at 3:13 p.m. and that the ambulance arrived at the scene at 3:12 p.m. The caller was notified that the ambulance had arrived at the scene.
Off-duty healthcare worker criticized MTR for refusing to lend AED
The off-duty healthcare worker posted online yesterday (Feb. 20) that he had encountered someone fainting at the cab stand outside Tsuen Wan West Station on Feb. 14 and went to understand the situation, and was informed that other passers-by had already called the police, so he immediately performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on the patient. He said he asked another male passer-by to go inside the Station to borrow an AED, but he did not return until an ambulance arrived at the scene. Later, the male passenger returned to the scene, and the posters quoted him as saying that the reason why he could not get an AED was, "I saw a staff member and talked to him to ask for an AED and one of the MTR staff members said that it was none of his business if he was not in the MTR precincts," and that he "just said that he would send a staff member up there to find out about it first," but that the staff member had not brought an AED with him to the scene.
The posters went on to say that they had been giving first aid to the patient until the ambulance arrived and handed him over to the ambulance crew. He queried why he could not borrow the AED if it was not in the MTR precinct, saying, "MTR is a public service, so why is it none of your business?"
He complained to the MTR and received a reply from the MTR saying that it should not hesitate to provide an AED machine for the incident. The MTRCL also promised to raise the alertness of its staff and educate them on how to handle emergencies.
The man who died was a Ukrainian national
The police replied to media inquiries that on Feb. 14, 3:07 pm, they received a report that a man collapsed in the Tsuen Wan West Station opposite the location of Tai Ho Road near the roundabout. Ambulance crews arrived at the scene, found the man fainted and sent him to Yan Chai Hospital rescue, but the man unfortunately died.
According to media reports, the deceased was a 62-year-old Ukrainian man who was employed by a shipping company and came to Hong Kong with a passport to carry out maintenance work on ships. On the day of the incident, while he was working, he disclosed to his colleagues that he had chest pains and felt unwell, and intended to go back to the hotel where he was staying to rest. He was later found lying on the ground opposite the MTR Tsuen Wan West Station, and passers-by called the police for assistance.
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