WEDNESDAY, Sept 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The growing popularity of e-scooters is translating to more broken bones and fractured skulls in U.S emergency departments, two new reports find.
Such cases doubled between 2021 and 2023, and in 88% of cases the e-scooter driver hadn't been wearing a helmet, one study found.
Another study found many injuries occurring among kids and teens: In two-thirds of cases involving people under the age of 16, injuries were considered "major" — sometimes requiring ICU care.
“An e-scooter is not a toy. We know they’re convenient and many families enjoy them, but a child can get hurt far worse on one than on a regular bike,” warned the senior author of that study, Dr. Cornelia Griggs. She's a pediatric surgeon and surgical critical care specialist at Mass General Brigham for Children in Boston.
Both studies were presented this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) in Washington, D.C.
In one study, a team from Howard University looked at data from more than 10,000 trauma-related admissions to U.S. hospitals. They found that admissions involving e-scooter injuries jumped 92% between 2021 (2,311 admissions) and 2023 (4,430 admissions).
Most (85%) of injuries were labeled minor or moderate, but 16.2% of patients required ICU care and 11.3% required surgery. Almost three-quarters of the injured were adult men.
Helmet use was linked to a lower odds of being admitted to the ICU after an e-scooter accident, but only about 12% of those injured said they'd been wearing one, the Howard team noted.
“It’s important to recognize that e-scooters are not innocuous vehicles; there is danger to them,” said Howard professor of surgery Dr. Quyen Chu, senior author of the study.
“We need to counsel patients that when they ride these vehicles, they should slow down, obey traffic rules and wear helmets," he said in an ACS news release. "Injuries can lead to serious consequences, including a greater than 10% chance of needing an operation.”
The second study was led by Griggs and used a national injury-surveillance database to track e-scooter injuries among people under the age of 19.
Looking at a total of 2,185 cases, they found injured youngsters averaged about 13 years of age, and injuries were more likely to be severe for those under 16.
Younger kids tended to use e-scooters at lower speeds than kids 16 and older, the report found, but they were still at higher odds for a severe injury.
“A child’s body is still developing, and that — more than the speed of the scooter — is what seems to determine how badly they get hurt,” Griggs said in the ACS news release.
Because these studies were presented at a medical meeting, their findings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
Find out more about the safe use of e-scooters at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
SOURCE: American College of Surgeons, news release, Sept. 25, 2026
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