Eye and Orbit Injuries Caused by Electric Scooters and Hoverboards in the United States

Abstract

Introduction

To evaluate eye and orbital injuries in non-powered scooter, electric-scooter (e-scooter), and hoverboard riders in the United States (US) between 2014 and 2019.

Methods

The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) was queried for head and neck injuries by body part codes related to non-powered scooters and powered scooters/hoverboards from 2014 to 2019. The NEISS complex sampling design was used to obtain US population projections of injuries and hospital admissions. Keywords were queried in case narratives to analyze trends in location, type, and mechanism of eye and orbit injuries.

Results

Since their introduction, a 586% (p=0.01) increase in e-scooter injuries and 866% (p<0.001) increase in hoverboard injuries were observed with an increase in hospital admissions seen in young adults (18–34) in urban areas (e-scooter: 5980% and hoverboard: 479%). Descriptive narratives of the trauma noted eye injuries in 242 unweighted NEISS cases with only 30 cases appropriately documented under body part code 77: eyeball. Eye injuries increased 96.9% during the study period (p=0.23). Specifically, the most common ophthalmic injuries reported included eyebrow (40.9%) and eyelid (11.3%) lacerations, periorbital contusions (18.7%), orbit fractures (6.6%), and corneal abrasions (5.1%).

Conclusion

There was a significant increase in both head and neck injury cases and hospital admissions related to e-scooters. Eye and orbit injuries similarly increased but were underreported by body part code compared to injury narratives. Orbital fractures were reported more frequently in injuries from e-scooters than non-powered scooters.

Plain language summary

From 2014 to 2019, there were significant increases in both head and neck injuries and hospital admissions related to e-scooters, with eye and orbital injuries similarly increased but underreported by body part code compared to the injury narratives.

Keywords:

• scooter
• e-scooter
• electric scooter
• hoverboard
• eye trauma
• orbital fracture
• orbit

Ethics and Consent

This study adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki and was performed in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of California, San Francisco.

Acknowledgments

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology Annual Meeting 2021; American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Fall 2020.

Disclosure

Dr Bryan Winn is an independent medical reviewer for a clinical trial on thyroid eye disease for Genentech. All authors report no other conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise in this work. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported, in part, by the UCSF Vision Shared Resource Core Grant (NIH/NEI P30 EY002162) and an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness to the Department of Ophthalmology at UCSF.