The number of patients attending emergency departments with injuries from scramblers, e-scooters and e-bikes is rising at an “exponential” rate and “stretching and already overstretched system”, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Two consultants in emergency medicine and trauma working at Dublin’s Mater hospital told the Oireachtas justice committee on Tuesday that adults were presenting with “severe traumatic brain injuries”.
Noting that more than a third of traumatic brain injury admissions in children are related to e-scooters, Dr Luke Phillips said this is a “pattern we are also seeing in the adult population”.
While fractured limbs are the most commonly seen injuries arising from incidents involving the vehicles, the committee heard patients are also presenting with organ injuries and spinal fractures.
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Phillips said they see a range of people affected, including pedestrians who have been struck.
Dr Shane Broderick told the committee that presentations relating to e-scooters, scramblers and e-bikes have risen since last year, noting that e-bike-related presentations in particular have “doubled”.
He said the rise in presentations can have onward consequences for “everybody else who’s waiting in the emergency department”.
“We’re already stretched, we’re already busy from a trauma point of view, and there’s no doubt that these numbers are rising at an exponential rate for us and it’s stretching an already overstretched system,” he said.
Phillips said major traumas relating to the vehicles can take up “a lot of resources”.
“That’s an hour or two of a big team’s work that aren’t seeing the patients waiting to be seen,” he said, adding that a team of three or four doctors could be required to treat a patient involved in such a collision.
“And at night-time, that’s our whole emergency department, in terms of the NCHDs (non-consultant hospital doctors) that are there, and then it takes about three or four nurses plus radiology,” he said.
The consultants said they welcomed Grace’s Law and other measures introduced and proposed by Government, though they said the import and sale of “non-road-legal machines” should be banned. Grace’s Law, named after teenager Grace Lynch who died after being hit by a scrambler bike last January, bans the use of scramblers in public places.
Asked if he favoured a ban on e-scooters, however, Phillips said he believed they are an “important form of transport” and people should have “autonomy to make that decision themselves”.
“What has happened in the last six months in Ireland has been extraordinary in terms of restricting the age limits, putting high-vis on people, putting helmets on people and now we just need to see that being enforced,” he said.
Michael Murphy, chair of the Oireachtas transport committee, told the meeting he had just travelled across Dublin city centre, and criticised the “level of non-compliance”.
“I’ve seen two on one e-scooter. Definitely, I saw children under the age of 16. I saw so many without a high-vis jacket. The vast majority were not wearing helmets,” he said.
Since September 4th, e-scooter users have been required to wear helmets and high-visibility clothing while, from October 2nd, the age limit for e-scooter users will rise from 16 to 18.
