A 17-year-old girl died in Malaga city's Alcazaba tunnel on 4 October after falling from an electric scooter and sustaining a very ... serious head injury. No other vehicles were involved in the accident.
It happened at around 1.45pm. The girl was riding an electric scooter towards Paseo de Reding when she lost her balance and fell to the ground, hitting her head against the asphalt.
Although she was wearing a protective helmet, the girl suffered a very serious head injury. From the outset, the paramedics warned that her chances of survival were slim. She was admitted in a critical condition to Hospital Regional, where she died a few hours later.
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The accident and incident investigation unit of the Malaga Local Police attended the scene and began piecing together the sequence of events. They collected witness statements and footage from the tunnel's CCTV cameras.
One of the witnesses was the girl's twin brother, who was apparently riding just behind her on another electric scooter. Both his account and the footage confirmed that no other vehicles were involved and that the accident was not caused by the girl's carelessness, as she was riding correctly.
Investigators also checked the condition of the road surface at the scene of the accident and found no potholes that would explain why she lost control of the scooter. The rain also doesn't appear to have played a role. According to the sources, it was an "absurd fall caused by sheer bad luck".
The girl was wearing an open-face helmet. Sources recommend using full-face helmets and highlight the high accident rate associated with electric scooters. These modes of transportation lack stability at the maximum speed they reach and the force of a fall is absorbed entirely by the rider's body.
Although there have been some very serious incidents, such as the one two years ago involving an elderly woman who was hit by an electric scooter, the rider of which fled the scene, the accident records show no fatal accidents in Malaga city until now.