An east Auckland man crashed into by a boy on a scooter experienced a medical nightmare which left him with a gaping wound on his foot that became infected with maggots.
Ian Scott was walking out of a shop on Picton Street in Howick on December 8 last year when he was struck by a male teenager riding an electric ‘e-scooter’ along the footpath.
The scooter rider barrelled into Scott and the scooter ran over his left foot.
“He came out of nowhere and just banged into me and knocked me over,” he says.
“I stood up and swore loudly at him.
“I told him to take his scooter and then swore again.
“He half-heartedly apologised.”
Scott says the boy rode off and he got into his car and drove the short distance home.
A short time later a “huge” bruise, which turned black, developed on the top of Scott’s left foot.
“The skin became leather-like,” he says.
He had it x-rayed, which showed it wasn’t broken, but over the next two to four weeks the injury turned septic.
“It was causing me incredible grief at night time,” Scott says.
“The only way I could get through the night would be to get out of bed and sit in the lounge until daylight, when the pain subsided.
“That was going on every night.
“One morning the pain was excruciating.”
Scott says his doctor told him the injury was infected.
Despite taking antibiotics his foot wasn’t getting any better, and he soon ended up at Middlemore Hospital.
“I ended up at A&E one night and they said I should go to hospital and get it [the wound] scraped.
“One or two days later I rang the hospital and an ambulance came and got me and took me in.
“They stuck a needle in the top of it and it just erupted with a whole stream of pus like a river.”
Scott says a doctor told him the injury to his foot was a hematoma and it would need to be cleaned out.
That procedure left what he says was a hole about 2cm in diameter and 10mm deep on the top of his foot.
“It still hasn’t healed. They’re concerned about that and the lack of blood flow to the foot.
“I was in hospital for 14 days initially, then came home and had the district nurse visit me every second day for a week.
“On the seventh day she opened it up and said it’s full of maggots and I need to go back to hospital.
“So I did another week there.
“At that point the infection had cleaned up and it wasn’t so painful, but it’s still a mess.”
Scott underwent another procedure to improve blood flow in his leg.
He’s now back at home resting and hoping the injury to his foot will soon heal.
“I’m still not out of the woods.”
He says people should not be able to ride e-scooters on public footpaths and that “very heavy fines” should be issued to those who do so.
“It’s a hard one as I don’t know how you’re going to fine a 13-year-old.
“I don’t think they should even be on the road, let alone the footpath.
“They go quite fast. He [the boy who struck him] would have been going at good running speed.
“He just came out of nowhere and I didn’t see him coming.”
Auckland Transport spokesperson Natalie Polley says e-scooters can be used on the footpath or road, except in designated cycle lanes that are part of the road and designed for the sole use of cyclists.
While riding on a footpath, the scooter user must operate it in a careful and considerate manner, at a speed that does not put other footpath users at risk and give way to pedestrians and mobility device drivers, she says.
A police spokesperson says under Land Transport legislation, police will investigate and or prosecute or fine offences involving e-scooter, cyclist, and mobility users on footpaths if users are found to be at fault when there’s an accident involving pedestrians.
The legislation allows for fines to be issued of between $35 and $1000.
