Latest news with #eScooterInjuries
CTV News
10-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
SickKids Hospital seeing ‘tremendous increase' in e-scooter injuries, doctor says
SickKids is raising the alarm bell on the rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters. SickKids is raising the alarm bell on the rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters. Emergency medicine physician Dr. Daniel Rosenfield weighs in. Rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters An emergency room doctor at Toronto's SickKids Hospital says physicians are already seeing a 'tremendous increase' in both the number and severity of e-scooter injuries this year. Dr. Daniel Rosenfield told CP24 on Tuesday morning that the emergency department at SickKids saw 16 e-scooter injuries in the month of May alone. Rosenfield said this marks the continuation of a concerning trend that the downtown hospital has seen in recent years. According to SickKids, there were 16 e-scooter injuries in June and July of last year, up from just five in June and July of 2023. 'We've seen major head injuries, major inter-abdominal injuries, significant fractures,' Rosenfield said. 'The majority of the injuries we've seen are head injuries and 80 per cent of our users have not been wearing helmets when they had these injuries.' Rosenfield said the most severe injuries included significant facial fractures and internal bleeding. Some resulted in hospital and even ICU admission. 'The speeds that these scooters can reach so quickly, the acceleration that's found within these, much like an electric car, is unlike anything we've ever seen,' he said. 'My six-year-old on his scooter with his foot power cannot get anywhere near the speeds these kids get at two and three seconds.' Recent hospital data from 2020 to 2024 found that about 25 per cent of patients at SickKids who presented with e-scooter injuries were admitted for serious injuries. Rosenfield said experts do not recommend e-scooter use for anyone under the age of 16, adding that anyone riding one should wear a helmet to prevent serious injuries in the event of a collision. 'We are really lucky that we haven't seen any fatalities to date, but I honestly think as this trend continues, there is a good possibility that could occur.'
CTV News
10-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters
Rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters SickKids is raising the alarm bell on the rise of injuries bringing kids and teens through the ER related to e-scooters. Emergency medicine physician Dr. Daniel Rosenfield weighs in.
The Guardian
03-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
E-scooter injury toll revealed in study just ‘tip of the iceberg' in Australia, doctors warn
Every three days, a child injured on an e-scooter would come through the emergency department doors at the Sunshine Coast university hospital, according to Dr Matthew Clanfield. Between 2023 and 2024, 176 children were treated at the Queensland hospital. Some got off lucky with a scuffed knee. Others suffered life-threatening brain injuries requiring neurosurgery and psychological care. Clanfield's analysis of these injuries in under-16s treated at the hospital have been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. It is the first data in Australia to capture paediatric e-scooter injuries, and it's 'only the tip of the iceberg', Clanfield said. Analysing paediatric ED triage notes, the ages of those injured ranged between five and 15 years old. One in 10 had life-threatening or potentially life-threatening injuries, and more than a third suffered at least one bone fracture. Based on self-reported data from the patients, at the time of the accidents, 42% of children were not wearing a helmet; 36% were exceeding the legal speed limit of 25 kilometres an hour for e-scooters on Queensland roads; and in 13% of cases two people were riding one scooter. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'We had one child who got up to 70 kilometres an hour on an e-scooter and T-boned a car,' Clanfield said. In May, the Crisafulli LNP government announced a parliamentary inquiry into e-bike and e-scooter safety, but Clanfield's study has called for 'immediate governmental action' raising the age limit to protect children and match other states. In Queensland, children aged 12 to 15 are allowed to ride e-scooters if they are supervised by an adult riding alongside them on another device. Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory are the only jurisdictions that allow 12-year-olds to legally ride e-scooters. In New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania e-scooter users must be aged at least 16. The age limit is 18 in the Northern Territory and South Australia, according to Assoc Prof Terry Slevin, the CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia. E-scooter accidents are a 'growing problem', Slevin said. But a lack of national data to identify the size of the problem and no nationally consistent rules or enforcement of those laws make it a difficult problem to solve, he said. A University of Melbourne researcher, Assoc Prof Milad Haghani, searched local news stories published between January 2020 and April 2025 to gather data on e-scooter related deaths. He identified 30 fatalities. Of those, 11 were aged under 18. Slevin said a serious problem was that children did not have a sophisticated understanding of the road rules or road safety. However, he said e-scooters were also a 'general community safety issue' because other road, footpath and cycle path users could be struck by e-scooters. Dr Sarah Whitelaw, the Australian Medical Association's federal emergency medicine representative, said the study reflected what was happening in other states and territories. Whitelaw said it was 'heartbreaking' when injured patients and their families said 'they had no idea that they could get so badly injured on an e-scooter'. 'Emergency care and trauma specialists right around Australia are increasingly concerned about the number of injuries that we're seeing with regards to children under 18,' she said. Children were 'massively over-represented' in cases of e-scooter injuries and deaths, despite e-scooters being mostly ridden by adults. Part of the problem, Whitelaw said, was that 'these devices are unfortunately marketed to kids … [and] it's not clear to parents that, in fact, in many states and territories, it's illegal to ride them outside your home on public property unless you're over 16'. She said rather than banning e-scooters, governments should improve safety laws.
