MY SON, like every other ten-year-old lad at the moment, has a scooter – a heavy, metal affair with small wheels, commonly marketed as a ‘trick’ scooter.

I love the fact that he and his pals get out and about on these things and get so much pleasure from them.

However, recently I had to deal with a potentially life-threatening situation involving one of these scooters.

While playing on a cycle track, one of my son’s friends wielded his scooter above his head in a kind of pickaxe fashion and hit a passing cyclist on the head. I’m a first-aider and dealt with the young cyclist until paramedics and an ambulance arrived. He was lucky to escape with a deep gash to his forehead and two black eyes.

I’m highlighting this incident to urge children to stop trying to do dangerous ‘tricks’ with their scooters and to get parents to make their children aware of the dangers involved.

I know that YouTube is awash with clips of young lads doing amazing things with their scooters and our children are aspiring to emulate them. Keep it for the skate parks!

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