Roof-stunt teen plunges to death

A teenage parkour runner plunged to his death while performing stunts on the roof of a 15-story building in Tsim Sha Tsui yesterday.

Yeung Hoi-kit, 17,was playing parkour - an extreme sport is popular among young people - with two others.

The tragedy is believed to be the SAR's first parkour death.

A 15-year-old Indian boy suffered critical injuries after falling from a 19-story building in Yau Ma Tei during a suspected parkour attempt in 2015.

Police received a report yesterday afternoon from a resident on the lower floors of Tsim Sha Tsui Mansion on Lock Road who heard a loud bang and saw a man lying on the podium on the third floor.

Officers found the teenager with massive head injuries lying in a pool of blood. His right shoe was on the side of the podium.

Yeung was certified dead at the scene.

Officers took away a black backpack believed to have belonged to Yeung and two of his friends to assist the investigation.

The Secondary Five student lived with his father in public housing on Lai Kok Estate, Sham Shui Po.

No one answered the door at his home yesterday.

A neighbor said the teenager was very polite.

Tsim Sha Tsui Mansion is a complex of four interconnected blocks stretching from 36 to 50 on Lock Road.

Sources said Yeung was practicing parkour and jumping between the rooftops of Block C and D when he accidentally fell.

It is understood that the building has low security and the entrances on the ground floor and rooftops are not locked.

Yeung and his friends were believed to have taken an elevator to the 15th floor and climbed the stairs to the rooftop, where pipes and concrete obstacles were seen.

A resident living in the building said he has seen teenagers hanging out on the rooftop but have never heard of people playing parkour on it.

Practitioners of parkour, also called traceurs, attempt to get from one point to another in the most fluid way possible. Without assisting or protection equipment, athletes have to travel in the fastest and most efficient manner, while defying death.

In Hong Kong, where tall buildings are abundant, parkour players usually jump from one rooftop to another.

But Lo Chun-chung, a coach from Hong Kong Parkour Association, advised traceurs not to jump between rooftops to avoid tragedy.

"For moves that jump from one rooftop to another, we call them rooftopping," Lo said.

He said parkour beginners should have coaches and friends when doing the stunts, adding they should also start practicing with poses that require less power.

"We see many viral videos online of roof-topping players flying between rooftops, but it actually requires talent and lots of practice behind the camera," Lo said.

He added that traceurs should not blindly follow online videos.

The association teaches about 30 to 40 student traceurs, but Lo said it is hard to count the number of players in Hong Kong, as many of them chose to self-learn through online videos.

He said he and other parkour coaches normally bring students to places like parks, as there are more obstacles for practice, and they check if the obstacles are secured or sturdy before letting students go for a parkour attempt.

"We actually heard a lot of students found it hard to play parkour outdoors, as the degree of difficulty is so different from their usual training, which were normally conducted indoors," he said.

Lo advised traceurs to test their basic skills before challenging themselves to higher-level parkour attempts such as rooftopping.

The extreme sports was initiated in France in the 1980s.

There have been several deaths across the world which are understood to have been related to the sport.

In 2012, a 24-year-old Russian woman plunged 17 stories to her death during her first parkour lesson in Saint Petersburg.

The next year, Russian parkour player Pavel Kashin fell 200 feet to his death as he attempted to take a photo of himself doing a backflip on a rooftop.