EMERGENCY ROOMS REPORT A SPIKE IN VISITS INVOLVING ELECTRIC SCOOTERS

As injured electric scooter riders pour into emergency departments around the country, doctors have scrambled to document a trend that many view as a growing public safety crisis.

A detailed statistical portrait of that crisis won’t be available for another year, emergency physicians say, but some early samples are beginning to emerge.

In Salt Lake City — where dockless escooters have been on city streets since June — one hospital says it has seen a 161 percent increase in the number of visits involving scooters after comparing its latest statistics with the same threemonth period a year earlier.

Between June and September 2017, physicians at University of Utah Health’s emergency room treated eight patients injured by scooters, though each of those were likely people’s personal devices and not the electric fleet vehicles owned by companies like Bird, Lime and Skip.

During the same period this year, that number had climbed to 21, according to Dr. Troy Madsen, who practices at the University of Utah Health’s Emergency Department.

“Most of the patients with these injuries specifically reported that they were riding an escooter or a rental scooter,” said Madsen, noting that the riders ranged in age from 20 to 50 years old and were often injured attempting to catch themselves in a fall. “Interestingly, more than 80 percent of the injuries this year happened between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15, which would correspond with the increasing popularity and availability of the escooters.”

He added: “It’s worth noting that these were only emergency department visits.”

Scooter companies have repeatedly maintained that safety is a top priority.