$500,000 payment to family of jockey

The family of apprentice jockey Willy Kan Wai-yue, trampled to death in a fall at Sha Tin races on Sunday, are to receive $500,000 from the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

They will get $400,000 for immediate expenses, said a spokesman, while chairman Alan Li Fook-sum would personally donate $100,000.

No date has been set for the funeral, but the Jockey Club would make a tribute to the young rider when it was held. 'The form of the tribute is still to be decided,' said the spokesman.

St John Ambulance yesterday denied reports that it had left Kan at Prince of Wales Hospital in a locked stretcher, which doctors had had trouble undoing.

A newspaper report said treatment in the casualty department was delayed for 10 minutes while ambulance staff were telephoned.

'We never received any phone call from them, and we returned 30 minutes later to collect the stretcher, as is our usual practice,' said first aid staff member Lau Kang-lap. He said every trained medical worker would know how to undo the stretcher.

However, he said communications should be improved between the hospital and the first-aid team. A Hospital Authority spokesman denied treatment of Kan had been delayed.

Mr Lau, who has been stationed at the racecourse for 25 years, was also involved the last time a rider was killed. He helped take Englishman Brian Taylor to hospital in 1983. 'Kan had no visible injuries, while Taylor looked more serious. His mouth and nose were bleeding,' Mr Lau said.