Canadian doctors are warning that more children are being seriously injured, and even dying, in crashes involving electric scooters. A new survey of pediatricians has documented a sharp increase in severe cases over the past year, adding weight to concerns that a device many families treat as harmless is causing life-changing harm to young riders.
The survey recorded 10 deaths, 12 admissions to intensive care units and 26 hospitalizations lasting more than two days, all linked to e-scooter crashes in a single year. For doctors who treat these patients, the figures represent the most severe end of a much larger wave of injuries arriving in emergency departments across the country.
Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children is among the hospitals seeing the spike first-hand. Cases there climbed from roughly two dozen in 2023 to more than a hundred last year, and physicians say this year is on pace to be even higher. One doctor described it as a complete exponential rise in every type of injury an e-scooter crash can produce, from minor scrapes to major brain injuries and death.
Head injuries feature heavily in the most serious cases, and they are closely tied to riders who were not wearing a helmet. In one case, a 12-year-old boy was left with a fractured skull after crashing without head protection, and doctors initially warned there was a possibility he would not survive.
Some families have lived through that fear and come out the other side. Crystal Dunkley said her son Sean spent a week in a coma last summer and more than a month in hospital after a crash. He eventually made a full recovery, and now uses his experience to remind other young people to put on a helmet before they ride.
Part of the problem, doctors argue, is how the machines are perceived. E-scooters are often marketed and treated as toys, but physicians insist they are anything but, pointing to how fast they travel. On summer nights, children and teenagers can be seen racing around on the devices at speeds of 40 to 60 kilometres an hour or more, with little sense of the danger involved.
There are rules on the books meant to reduce that risk, but doctors say they are barely enforced. E-scooters are illegal for most Canadians under the age of 16, yet there is little enforcement of age limits, of the ban on carrying a second passenger, or of helmet use. With injuries rising so quickly, pediatricians are urging governments and parents alike to treat the devices as the potentially serious hazard they have proven to be.