Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation (MTRC) has denied allegations that a staff member at Tsuen Wan West MTR Station refused to lend its Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to help a man outside the station.
In response to media enquiries, the railway company said that last Saturday, a person approached a station maintenance worker for help after somebody fainted outside the station. The worker went with the person to the station’s control room to get the AED.
At that moment, the person learnt that help had arrived, and returned to the scene. Two staff members later also went to the scene.
In its response, the company said that the person seeking assistance approached staff at 3.13pm, whilst an ambulance had already arrived on the scene at 3.12pm.
The MTRC’s reply on Friday came after a post on social media platform Threads alleged that a station worker refused to lend the AED because the incident was outside the station’s jurisdiction.
The Threads user said someone collapsed outside Tsuen Wan West MTR station last Saturday, and they administered CPR to the person. The user said they asked a man to go get an AED, but the man came back and said he could not retrieve it.
“The man said that when he went down there, one of the MTR workers said if it’s not within the MTR station’s grounds, it’s not their business,” read the Chinese-language post, published Thursday night. “They said they’d just send staff to understand the situation first, but [they] did not bring the AED with them.”
The MTRC disputed the version of events, saying in Chinese: “During the communication process of handling the incident, a station staff member described at one point that the location of the patient was outside the station premises, which may have led to a misunderstanding on the part of the person seeking help.
“There was no refusal to lend the AED, nor refusal of assistance because the incident occurred outside the MTR’s jurisdiction,” the railway company added.
In response to HKFP, police said it received a call just after 3pm that a man had collapsed opposite Exit D of Tsuen Wan West MTR station. Paramedics arrived on the scene and brought him to Yan Chai Hospital, where he was certified dead.
The man was a 62-year-old Ukrainian visiting Hong Kong, police added.
Speaking outside the Legislative Council chamber on Friday, lawmaker Edmund Wong said he was concerned about the incident and urged the MTRC to publicise the details of what happened.
The MTRC, as a large public corporation, should provide relevant training for work and update their internal guidelines on the matter, Wong said.
He said the Fire Safety Department had been promoting the “AED Anywhere for Anyone” campaign in recent years to facilitate the use of the life-saving device in the community by increasing the quantity of publicly accessible AEDs.
There should be “no restrictions,” Wong said, adding that if MTR staff had refused to lend the AED on the basis that the incident was not on station grounds, then their response had “indeed fallen short of public expectations.”
