The essentials A man was seriously injured Thursday when he fell off his scooter in Toulouse. Another user, hit in June, spent several days in a coma after an accident near Blagnac. An illustration of the risks of simple and fun equipment, but also dangerous.
“I was going to pick up my son when I saw a man on the ground, in bad shape. I went to help him.” When Sébastien intervened late Thursday afternoon, he didn’t know what had just happened. “The man was on the ground, on the sidewalk, unconscious. There was blood everywhere. He was choking on, I think, his own blood. I freed his tongue and tried to put him in a safety position… Luckily a doctor, an anesthesiologist from Rangueil Hospital, came to help me.”
For the two men, once the first aid and the emergency services were alerted, the wait seemed long. “The injured man started to get agitated. The doctor was giving the medical vital signs live to the emergency services. It was a strange experience. People around us were watching without really knowing what to do. Some had the reflex to stop traffic,” confided Sébastien, a police officer who had just completed a rescue course. “Trainer,” smiles the man in question who, covered in blood, must have also thought about cleaning up, “like the doctor.”
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The firefighters took charge of the victim, who was hospitalized in the emergency room in Purpan. “I didn’t get any specific feedback, but apparently he suffered fractures, especially to the face, maybe the jaw. One or two teeth missing…”
On an electric scooter, this man crossed Avenue Jean-Rieux on Thursday around 6 p.m. “To avoid a trash can” according to witnesses. Only when getting on the sidewalk did he fall violently. Without a helmet or gloves. An accident that is too common on machines whose stability remains uncertain. Especially when you have overindulged in aperitifs, which seemed to be the case for the injured man on Thursday.
Scooter plus alcohol equals danger!
Dr. Arthur James, a resuscitation specialist at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, conducted a study based on data from twenty-six French trauma centers. It shows that 36% of scooter accident victims were under the influence of alcohol. Above all, this work reveals that there is a greater chance of suffering serious head trauma in a scooter accident than in a bicycle or motorcycle accident…
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At the end of June, on the Blagnac road, a driver who was turning left did not see a man coming on a scooter. The impact was violent, the driver of the small two-wheeler spent several days in neurosurgery. At 27, this man is starting to recover. The police are continuing their investigation and the driver of the car was also interviewed this week.
The police also opened an investigation last week. The cause was an accident involving a 32-year-old man on the path of the Canal Lateral de la Garonne, between Saint-Jory and Fenouillet, north of Toulouse. He overtook a couple who found that he was zigzagging a lot. A few minutes later, they found the scooter on the bank. Its driver had fallen into the water. He could not be saved. His relatives suspect a convulsive seizure that caused his accident as had happened to him before. The investigation, with a planned autopsy, will have to determine this.
