What ER doctors, prosecutors and parents want you to know about e-bikes | CNN

On Christmas Day, Jade Sharpe watched as her 13-year-old daughter Kennedi Chandler took her brand-new e-bike – capable of going about 20 mph – for a spin in their Indiana neighborhood. Her parents had a plan to get Kennedi a key piece of safety gear. But they didn’t have the heart to say no when, on the unseasonably warm holiday, she asked to ride the electric bike she’d begged them for – without a helmet. Less than two hours later, the teenager hit the pavement. “The next thing I knew was flashing lights, and then just … heart sunk. You just know,” Sharpe told CNN. “I didn’t realize how bad it was until we were in the ambulance,” Sharpe said. Even though they live in a big suburb of the state’s biggest city, they weren’t heading to the closest hospital. “And then you realize we’re going to the best trauma center Indianapolis has, and that’s because that’s what she needed.” Kennedi sustained a traumatic brain injury and spent the next 20 days in the hospital, 14 in intensive care. Doctors had to remove part of her skull to quell the swelling and bleeding in her brain. “This surgeon,” Sharpe said, “has expressed how many bicycle accidents sh