If you saw the author blurb, you know that my son had a major accident. If you read the first article How it All Started with Electric Scooters, then you know that we covered safety with my son and he still fought it a bit. It’s so easy to fall victim to other people telling you something wrong and feeling they are right. Even if they aren’t your best friends, people can be convincing when they really believe what they are saying!

I had already seen my son not wear a helmet once, and that would be the one and only time that happened. The day after I saw him without the helmet, it snowed. We had several days of cold weather, which kept the ice around. It was about a week later that it had been pretty warm during the day and it looked like most of the snow and ice was gone from the streets. So, when my son asked if he could ride his scooter on January 15, 2026, I looked at him with the sternest, most serious Mom look I could muster up at the time and asked, “What are you going to wear this time?” He looked shocked and responded, “I promise I will wear my helmet.”

We had a rule at the time that he needed to stay close to his friend because he didn’t have a cell phone. However, his friend got tired and my son decided to do “one last lap” around our circle. Twenty minutes later, I was already in panic mode. I saw the friend on the front stoop and hadn’t seen my son for way too long. I was just about to run outside and start looking for him when he came in the door. I had been getting a jacket, so I didn’t see him coming up the stairs, but I heard the crying. I turned to my husband and asked if I heard crying. He said he didn’t think so and poked his head around the door to look and I will never forget the sound of his voice. “Oh no, oh god,” he said.

I almost started crying immediately. I already knew by the crying and my husband that it wasn’t good. “It’s ok, let’s get you cleaned up. It doesn’t look so bad.” Those were the next words out of my husband’s mouth. I couldn’t look. This was my baby. I was already dreading asking the question I had to ask. Luckily, my husband asked it. “Did you have your helmet on?”

“Yes,” my son sobbed. When he spoke, it was muffled in a weird way. I would find out in a few minutes that his mouth was swollen and worse. The crying kept going on for at least another minute. My husband tried talking soothingly to our son, but he wanted his mom. I wanted to hug him, but I was so scared. I only froze in place for about a minute or two, waiting to hear that he was OK. That didn’t come, though. Instead, I could hear my husband again. “I need to check to see if your teeth are still in your mouth.”

One of the Worst Moments in a Parents’ Life

I would love to exaggerate this story to make you realize how horrible and traumatizing it was, but every parent out there knows the feeling of fear that your child isn’t OK. It had been almost two minutes of hearing my child sob, hoping that my husband was comforting him. I was torn on whether I go in there and risk my reaction making things worse, or just sitting outside of the door a little, not looking.

I finally went in. It was both worse than I imagined and not quite as bad, either. The problem was that the wound went straight down the front of his face. I can’t remember the exact words, but he told us what happened. My son had been riding at top speed around the circle we live on, and a car came speeding around the curve. He moved over toward the parked cars to stay out of the way. He thinks he slowed down… but all of a sudden, he was flying through the air and hit the pavement with his face.

I need to pause and mention that my son suffers from a sensory issue. We have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Touch for him was horrible. He wasn’t even able to eat solid food until much older than most children because I had to desensitize his mouth. It was explained to me that when we have something that touches our skin that is soft and we can feel that softness, the same exact thing can feel like a cactus to someone with a sensory issue. So, I could only imagine the pain he was in at the time of all of this.

We found out that he had hit black ice. The HOA we live in does not clear the snow or treat any areas of the street. They stopped doing it and pushed the responsibility off to the homeowners in the area. It’s one of many of the complaints I have about HOAs, but that’s for a different website. He didn’t see the ice when he hit it and he lost control. He flew over the front of his handlebars and couldn’t put his hands up fast enough to prevent hitting the ground. He hit with his forehead first, then slid and his nose, mouth, and chin all hit next. I’m sure you can imagine that scenario. It was horrible to hear the story from him and later from witnesses.

The main thing I want to emphasize here is that he was wearing a helmet. It literally saved his life. I didn’t really think much about why he was still seriously injured until the second ER trip. (Yes, this was a very long nightmare that we were living!) Even with wearing a helmet, though, the damage was bad. We could see a hole in his upper lip. I guessed at that moment that his teeth had gone through his lip. It was really high up, too, so it was hard to know if that’s really what it was.

It did not take me long to make the decision to take my son to the ER. Actually, there is an Urgent Care not far from us that we went to first. The reason we decided to do that was because it was a head trauma. With something like that, you don’t really want to mess around or wait too long for treatment. We figured a doctor could at least look at him, clean up the wound some, and give us the next guidance.

The Trip to the Hospital

I couldn’t hug my son the way I wanted to, but I could hold his hand and tell him I would be with him every step of the way, no matter what happened. We got in the truck, and my husband drove while I talked to my son and tried to keep him calm. “Am I going to die?!” he asked, completely worried.

It took everything I had not to break down and cry. “No way,” I said… but I didn’t know that for sure. “The injuries on your face do not look nearly bad enough for you to die.” Then, I panicked and added a weird thing I remembered from high school DMV class. “I heard of a guy that lived through a pole going through his shoulder.” I know… why say something like that to a kid? It was a dumb video, obviously shocking enough in high school to remember. My husband had seen the same video and so he kind of rolled with it, too. Oddly enough, my son felt better because he didn’t have a pole sticking out of his shoulder. He hadn’t really stopped crying, yet, though.

We got to the urgent care and rushed him in. The crying and blood all over his face made everyone stand up and start moving. The doctor got him in right away and they started cleaning up the wound. They identified that he had a hole, which they did believe was due to his teeth. They checked his teeth and said that they seemed to be fine, but that he would probably need an x-ray to be sure. They asked a bunch of questions and then I thought they would do an x-ray, but they didn’t. Instead, they told us to go to the ER instead because they weren’t sure if they could really stitch up his lip.

On to the Next Hospital

“I don’t want stitches!” my son was sobbing as we left to get back into the car for another 20 minutes. We got to the ER and there was maybe one other kid in front of us in line. However, I think it was several hours before they called us back. They called almost every child that came in after us. Not one of them was in worse condition than my son. Normally, head injuries would take priority, but for whatever reason, it didn’t that night. To be fair, I think the doctor that would have been involved with evaluating my son was finishing with another patient, so being called back sooner wouldn’t have necessarily helped. It was frustrating and stressful, though, because there were kids with coughs (and their parents with coughs) not covering their mouths or wearing a mask or anything. I was now super worried that we were all being exposed to the worst things out there.

The rest of the visit went like you’d expect. I had observed that his leg was swollen really bad around his knee, so I had him in a wheelchair. The doctor said that since he had been wearing a helmet that he didn’t really need to force an x-ray and it was up to us. When my husband asked what would he do. He said if it was his kid, he would do the x-ray. I turned to him and said “if it were my kid, I’d do the x-ray… oh wait, it is my kid, let’s just do the x-ray!”

I want to pause again and say that my son was asked about 8 times at this point if he was wearing a helmet. It started to get pretty weird actually. In fact, it was so weird, I finally asked what was going on. One nurse finally let it slip when she asked if he had been wearing his helmet and he said yes. She responded “oh, that’s excellent because the last kid that was in here wasn’t wearing one and wasn’t as lucky as you.”

Ok, now, think about being in that exact moment with your own child. Even now, months later, I want to cry thinking about that poor child. I have no clue what happened to them. By law, they cannot tell me anything. I don’t know if the child needed surgery or died or what… but it’s horrifying to think that MY son was lucky when wearing a helmet and still looked like he did! I want to believe that the kid will just end up with a few more scars than my son and that is it. The poor parents of that child… I just cannot imagine it worse than what we had.

What I Wish I Had Known Beforehand

Everyone always asks if I would have done anything different now that I’ve lived through this type of experience. The problem isn’t the lack of knowledge in this type of situation. It’s the high potential for panicking. My son later came to me and took my hand and said “Mommy, I’m very glad you had the courage to look at me again.” I was able to hug him and tell him I was so sorry and that I was worried about making him panic because of the look on my face. He said I did well, though, and I promised him again that I would be right with him every step of the way through his recovery.

I will tell you this, though. We had to go back to the ER a week later and a nurse asked again if he was wearing a helmet. I thought it was related to that other child, but she said that she had not seen a child wearing a helmet get hurt as much as my son had. I knew my son had been wearing a helmet because you could literally see the mark on his head from the force of hitting the ground with the helmet on. However, that made me start looking into helmets more because we just got him what everyone around had said was the best helmet for electric scooters.

The research was able to wait a little until my son was healed, though. So, I got a crash course in helping with his wounds and what to watch out for as far as infections go. We had a lot of opinions on what was needed or not needed, but we eventually went to the pediatrician to get their guidance and to do a follow up.