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Watch: Lime scooter rider suffers serious injuries in truck crash

Author
NZ Herald ,
Publish Date
Fri, 18 Jan 2019, 7:01AM

Watch: Lime scooter rider suffers serious injuries in truck crash

Author
NZ Herald ,
Publish Date
Fri, 18 Jan 2019, 7:01AM

A teenager on a Lime e-scooter has been seriously injured in a crash with a truck in Dunedin.

Emergency services were called to the crash at 1.45am near the intersection of Dundas St and Cumberland St.

A St John spokesman said an 18-year-old woman was transported to Dunedin Hospital in a serious condition.

Earlier this morning State Highway 1 (Cumberland St) was closed to southbound traffic between Howe St and St David St, however all lanes reopened just after 7am.

A Lime scooter rider has serious injuries after a crash with a truck in Dunedin this morning. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery
A Lime scooter rider has serious injuries after a crash with a truck in Dunedin this morning. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

A video captured by a witness at the scene shows an e-scooter lying in the middle of the road, with a plastic shopping bag still slung over the handle with contents inside.

Both a truck parked alongside, and the scooter, appear to be undamaged.

The truck involved was a New World supermarket vehicle. A Foodstuffs spokeswoman said it was aware of the incident.

"Our team is supporting the truck driver and wishing the scooter rider well for her recovery," she said.

"The issue is now with the police and we can make no further comment."

A steady stream of Lime scooter-related casualties have made their way to Dunedin Hospital since the scooters made their debut in the city just last week.

A Lime e-scooter lies on the road beside a truck after a crash in the early hours of this morning. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery
A Lime e-scooter lies on the road beside a truck after a crash in the early hours of this morning. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

Southern District Health Board nursing medicine director Jenny Hanson said staff were seeing five to seven presentations a day in the emergency department directly attributable to Lime scooters.

So far they had mostly been a mix of minor to moderate injuries to hands, feet and heads.

ACC had received four scooter-related claims in the first four days since Lime launched in Dunedin on January 9, but could not specify if they were Lime-related or injuries suffered on other scooters.

Lime e-scooters hadn't even been in Dunedin for one day before someone attempted to ride one down the world's steepest street.

Footage of the attempt shows the young man slowly but steadily creep his way down Baldwin St, falling off for a short moment before getting back on the scooter.

He had to evade other members of the public walking up the tourist hotspot but made it down in one piece.

Earlier this week, someone dumped a Lime scooter on train tracks in Dunedin, an act that endangered people's lives, according to KiwiRail.

The scooter ended up getting hit by a shunt train on Sunday.

There was no damage to either the locomotive or the track, and services were not delayed; however it was both "dangerous and illegal to place objects on railway tracks", a KiwiRail spokeswoman said.

Police in the city are keeping a close eye on Lime scooter users to try curb reckless behaviour, especially on Baldwin St.

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