THE older brother of a teenager who suffered spine and head injuries in an accident on a flight simulator at the Hong Kong Space Museum claimed staff failed to act quickly enough to help him.
Yip Wai-fung, 14, was using the Multi-Axis Chair - a machine designed to let visitors experience the way astronauts are trained - when the safety belt around his shoulders and waist apparently came off. He hit his head on the bottom of the machine and fell unconscious.
He was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he was operated on for a dislocated neck and head injuries. His condition was satisfactory last night.
His brother, a student at the Chinese University who declined to give his name, witnessed the accident at about 6 pm on Thursday. He claimed no first aid had been provided other than some tissues to stop the bleeding.
He and a staff member stopped the machine from rotating, he said. The bleeding had continued but only after 15 minutes did staff members carry Yip to a manager's office, where they called an ambulance.
He said: ''They gave me the feeling that they didn't know what to do, let alone provide any first aid or a medical box.'' A spokesman for the Urban Services Department (USD), which runs the museum, said proper first aid procedures had been followed.
She said a museum cultural services assistant with first aid training had attended to the teenager.
