{"id":597809,"date":"2026-09-12T05:28:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T05:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597809\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T05:28:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T05:28:17","slug":"mans-mouth-shattered-into-dust-in-e-scooter-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/597809\/","title":{"rendered":"Man\u2019s mouth \u2018shattered into dust\u2019 in e-scooter crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kendall said he had three e-scooters which he had bought after a friend got one. He thought it seemed like an easy way of getting around Greenlane, where he lived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day of the accident I was going to a dentist appointment \u2013 ironically. I have no recollection of the actual accident, only what a plumber who saw it happen told me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendall said while he was wearing a helmet, which protected him from a brain injury, it did not have a chin strap so his jaw took the full brunt of the fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe front just stopped moving … I smashed into the ground head-first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kendall spent a week in both Auckland and Middlemore hospitals, and in the two years since had undergone more surgeries on his face and jaw than he could count.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my sense of smell pretty much entirely, I have scarring inside my mouth where plates were installed … lots of scarring around my eyes …<\/p>\n

\u201cThe top palate of my mouth … was shattered into dust, so my top teeth were all completely broken out of my mouth and they had to rebuild the roof of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was still hard at times to speak clearly, eat and even swallow.<\/p>\n

Kendall said if he had been wearing a full-face helmet, his jaw wouldn\u2019t have been so damaged.<\/p>\n

But the first surgeon he saw at Auckland Hospital told him if he hadn\u2019t been wearing a helmet at all he would likely have a severe brain injury or even be dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me really scared looking at parents picking up children on scooters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI often see a very small child standing in front of a dad going at speed, grinning, having a jolly time, but the tragedy that would befall that child if even the slightest thing went wrong … that would end in death or extremely serious brain injury … it\u2019s just terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the crash Kendall said he asked a friend to get rid of the e-scooters. He had not been on one since.<\/p>\n

Kendall said something needed to be done to make people more aware of the risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cUrgent regulatory intervention is needed with required safety messaging being provided<\/a> by retailers and laws requiring full-face helmets that cover the chin.\u201d<\/p>\n

His message to other riders was simple: \u201cStay safe \u2013 wear a full-face helmet, gloves and ideally long pants as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACC figures released this year showed claims for e-scooter injuries were on the rise, with children and young people among the most affected.<\/p>\n

ACC paid out almost $16 million for scooter-related injuries in 2025, up about 10% on the year prior. Just over $1.2 million had been paid out in January 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kendall said he had three e-scooters which he had bought after a friend got one. He thought it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3549,45606,25021,115286,78,296,16122,25020,59037,111,43,139,69,43044],"class_list":["post-597809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-crash","tag-dust","tag-earley","tag-escooter","tag-in","tag-into","tag-mans","tag-melanie","tag-mouth","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shattered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}