{"id":570477,"date":"2026-07-05T19:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/570477\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:52:12","slug":"i-didnt-know-what-i-was-running-over-to-mother-of-boy-hit-by-scrambler-says-locals-are-afraid-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/570477\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I didn\u2019t know what I was running over to\u2019 \u2013 Mother of boy hit by scrambler says locals are afraid \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mother who believed her 14-year-old son was dead after being hit by a scrambler bike in Dublin\u2019s north inner city has said locals are living in fear of the vehicles.<\/p>\n

Jayden Deans, who has autism and dyspraxia, a condition affecting physical co-ordination, was left seriously injured after he was struck on June 20th.<\/p>\n

The teenager had gone to the local shop with a friend for ice at about 9.30pm during a spell of warm weather. After using a pedestrian crossing at the Five Lamps near Portland Row, he was struck by the motorbike.<\/p>\n

His mother, Sandra Deans, received a call from her son\u2019s friend, informing her of the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could hear a woman in the background saying, \u2018ring an ambulance\u2019,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI just ran.\u201d She described \u201cbegging\u201d drivers to let her cross various roads as she went to the scene of the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he was dead. I didn\u2019t know what I was running over to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jayden was on the ground with his leg \u201cfolded nearly behind him\u201d when she arrived.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Grace\u2019s Law: Scramblers to be banned in all public places Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a driver of a scrambler was \u201cgoing up and down the wrong side of the road, by me and Jayden,\u201d she said, believing he was attempting to gauge the extent of her son\u2019s injuries. \u201cHe just put his visor down and off he went.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her son was taken to hospital for a fractured shin bone, which required surgery.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see my son in so much pain, it was horrible,\u201d said Deans.<\/p>\n

A witness later told her that the driver, who was thrown from his scrambler, shouted abuse at Jayden as he lay on the ground.<\/p>\n

Deans described scramblers in the area as \u201ccareless\u201d and constant.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeighbours are not letting children go to the shops on their own any more,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are scared. My mother is afraid and she was afraid before Jayden got knocked down.\u201d <\/p>\n

A Garda spokesperson said an investigation into the incident was ongoing.<\/p>\n

Since April, the use of scramblers in public spaces has been banned under Grace\u2019s Law<\/a>, named after 16-year-old Grace Lynch, who was killed after being struck by a scrambler in Finglas in January.<\/p>\n

Speaking near the scene of the incident involving Jayden Deans on Friday, Teegan Kavanagh (20) said she was \u201cnervous\u201d at times while turning corners or crossing roads in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know what to expect. They come out of the blue,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Her friend, Kayla Higgins (19), added: \u201cThey\u2019re not really getting arrested for [using public spaces], so obviously they\u2019re going to do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Nearby, four separate scramblers drove on the road within a 20-minute period. On one of them, a young passenger held on to the driver from behind without a helmet.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats TD Daniel Ennis, who lives in the area and raised the incident in the D\u00e1il last week, said scramblers are \u201cone of the biggest issues our area faces. It\u2019s not only intimidating or terrorising our communities, it\u2019s actually injuring and killing people. Without a dedicated policing unit, the legislation doesn\u2019t matter to these lads.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said such a unit would ideally enable garda\u00ed equipped with drones to allow pursuits without the risk of causing injury to bystanders or scrambler drivers, which he believes is causing apprehension.<\/p>\n

Grace Lynch\u2019s father, Martin, said he sees scramblers using public roads \u201cevery day\u201d, adding that it makes his blood boil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government made a big thing of naming [Grace\u2019s Law] in her honour, so … they need to follow through and put the measures in place to stop it happening again,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiving her the law is all great, but if it\u2019s not policed or well thought out, it\u2019s not good for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mother who believed her 14-year-old son was dead after being hit by a scrambler bike in Dublin\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18572,53098,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-570477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dublin-1","tag-dublin-3","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-garda-siochana","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}