His mother, Giselle Walker, is now calling for e-scooters to be banned from footpaths.
However, Flamingo — the company with the licence to operate e-scooters in Dunedin — has disputed her version of events and says it takes safety seriously.
Ms Walker said she and her 8-year-old son were walking past New World Gardens on Tuesday when a person on a Flamingo e-scooter came barrelling down the footpath at speed.
They knocked her son over and he landed face first on the pavement.
The e-scooter rider gave a "mumbled apology", before heading off at full speed down the footpath, she said.
Ms Walker took her son to hospital, where he was diag-
nosed with a concussion.
"I yelled at him [the e-scooter rider] and said, you know, ‘don’t ride at that pace on the footpath, you could kill someone’.
"If he’d hit an older person, he would probably have killed them."
When the duo came out of Dunedin Hospital, it was dark, and they saw another person speeding along the footpath on an e-scooter.
"We see people on these bloody e-scooters on the footpath travelling at ridiculous speeds, in ridiculous places, all the time."
Ms Walker’s son now faces weeks cooped up indoors due to his injuries.
People did not ride the e-scooters responsibly and did not consider how much damage they could do, she said.
"There definitely needs to be a bit more awareness on how to actually be a bit more responsible on an e-scooter. If they crash into a car, they’re dead as well."
She believed people on e-scooters should be wearing a helmet, off the footpaths and in bike lanes.
Flamingo co-founder and chief executive Jacksen Love said the company was aware of the reported incident.
"At this stage, there are significant inconsistencies in the information provided by the mother and the rider involved.
"However, our ride data and records have so far validated the rider’s version of events. Our full investigation is still ongoing."
The Flamingo team spoke with Ms Walker within two hours of her filing an incident report and they offered support to her and her son, Mr Love said.
"Riders are required to acknowledge safety warnings and repeat infractions result in their accounts being suspended or permanently deactivated, depending on the severity of the violation."
The company took safety seriously and had a number measures in place to encourage responsible riding, including
compulsory training, onboard sensors which detected dangerous riding and an escalation process for riders found to be riding in an unsafe manner, he said.
"All riders are reminded that they must give way to pedestrians at all times. Our compulsory rider training strongly reinforces this, along with responsible riding habits."
A Dunedin City Council spokesman said there was no regulation requiring e-scooter riders to wear helmets, but Flamingo provided free helmets on request and incentivised riders to wear them.
"The Land Transport Act 1998 allows e-scooters to be ridden on the footpath, but requires riders to do so carefully and considerately, including so that speed is not a hazard to other footpath users.
"Enforcement of these requirements is a matter for police."
