ePoster with Impact Presentation ANZBA Annual Scientific Meeting 2024

Burns caused by exploding e-scooter lithium ion batteries: a worrying new trend (21056)

Michelle Duff 1 , Carl Lisec 1
  1. The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Alderley, QLD, Australia

The popularity of e-scooters had risen dramatically in recent years. While much attention has been on the various traumatic injuries sustained while riding these devices, we have noticed another worrying trend: burns caused by malfunctioning lithium ion batteries contained within the e-scooters themselves. We present a case series of 8 patients since 2020 who have sustained burns treated as inpatients at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. The average age was 32 years and there were 6 males and 2 females in our series. The mean %TBSA burnt was 30% (Range 0.1-90%, Median 23.5%). There was one fatality who was palliated soon after admission (90% TBSA). We will briefly describe the patterns of burns encountered as well as the surgical management strategies.

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