A doctor’s blunt warning to families who have been buying a popular item for their Gen Z kids has spiraled into a heartbreaking outpouring from parents.
A pediatric operating room surgeon, known as Cynlyn on TikTok, gave a painful reality check about buying e-bikes for kids.
Parents then began sharing horror stories of their own children having accidents, trauma, and even losing their lives in some tragic cases.
A doctor’s blunt warning to families buying a popular item for kids has spiraled into a heartbreaking outpouring from parents
Image credits: cynlyn28 / TikTok
In a video that’s garnered 21.2 million views on TikTok, Cynlyn spoke about how e-bikes were way too dangerous for kids to be riding.
“Don’t buy your kid an e-bike,” she declared without any hesitation in her voice.
“If I could give parents any piece of advice right now, it would be ‘Don’t get an e-bike for your child.’”
Image credits: cynlyn28 / TikTok
The doctor urged parents to ensure their children wear helmets when riding.
“The consequences to e-bike accidents are life-changing and de*dly. And honestly, kids should not be riding them. Or at the very minimum, they should be wearing a helmet,” she went on to say.
“So please, just don’t buy them.”
“The consequences to e-bike accidents are life-changing and de*dly,” Cynlyn said in her viral TikTok video
Image credits: cynlyn28 / TikTok
Her warning instantly struck a chord online among parents, medical professionals, and others.
“Trauma nurse here, 10000000000% agree… we’ve had so many devastating brain injuries that young kids are never going to recover from,” one said.
Image credits: cynlyn28 / TikTok
Another wrote, “As an adult driver in a neighborhood of ebikes…. NO, YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT READY FOR THAT KIND OF RESPONSIBILITY.”
“We just lost a middle schooler a few weeks ago, the community is devastated,” said one. “The driver was a teenager, his life too will be forever altered, but in a different way.”
“As a funeral director, DO NOT let your child on an e bike. Ever,” one commented online
Image credits: Uriel Mont / Pexels
One parent shared a heartbreaking story of her son suffering Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
“My son passed away 3 months ago due to complications from the TBI he got while riding an e-scooter 3 years ago,” the parent said.
The son initially survived.
“He worked so hard to learn to walk, talk, socialize, all the things again. I thought we were in the clear… and then he was gone,” the parent continued. “I do not wish this pain on any parent. Please make your children wear motorcycle-grade helmets if they are riding electric scooters or bikes. Please.”
Image credits: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels
Sales for e-bike sales went up from 50,000 in 2018 to 527,000 in 2022, according to data provided by a market research firm called Circana. Projections also expect the US e-bike market to grow from roughly $4.4bn in 2026 to more than $6.2bn by 2031.
But e-bikes are increasingly becoming associated with life-altering injuries and fatalities.
“I see [an e-vehicle injury] every single day,” Dr. Ashley Pfaff, a trauma and critical care surgeon at Bellevue Hospital in New York, told City Journal last year, as quoted by The Guardian.
Image credits: M.Emin BİLİR / Pexels
According to the transportation department, New York City reported 901 e-bike injuries in the year 2025, a 41% increase from 2024.
Two towns in California declared a state of emergency after the surge in the number of fatal crashes involving e-bikes.
Meanwhile, in Tampa Bay, Florida, doctors are experiencing a “paradigm shift in what we do in emergency medicine” after the number of patients being admitted for injuries from e-bikes, a local pediatrician and emergency room physician previously told a local news outlet.
At least 28 people lost their lives in e-bike crashes over the last five years in Tampa Bay.
A trauma and critical care surgeon said they see at least one e-vehicle-related injury every single day
Image credits: Alimurat Üral / Pexels
Lawmakers have been pushing to increase awareness and improve infrastructure for the safety of e-bike riders and others using other modes of transport.
“When we think about e-bike crashes and deaths related to e-bikes, the vast majority are cars and trucks killing people on e-bikes as opposed to people on e-bikes injuring somebody else,” Alexa Sledge, director of communications for Transportation Alternatives, told The Guardian.
Image credits: Stephen Andrews / Pexels
Transportation Alternatives is an organization that works to make streets safer for New Yorkers.
“What we really want to see is an improved and expanded infrastructure to protect people that are biking, protect people that are walking and make sure that there are different protected areas for all types of transportation,” Sledge added.
Several viewers shared their own horror stories of people having e-bike accidents
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