When Carly Calland remembers her son Jacob, she pictures a boy always busy and on the move.
“He was always dressed, out the door, with his mates all day, come back, eat, sleep, computers. It was like one of those eat, sleep, breathe, repeat kind of things, but for a teenage boy,” she laughed.
But on 19 March, Jacob Calland left his family’s house in Wythenshawe, Manchester, for the last time. Just 18 minutes after he closed the front door, the 14-year-old was involved in a catastrophic collision. He had been riding as a passenger on the back of his friend’s e-scooter, and neither of them had been wearing any protection.
Carly never allowed Jacob an e-scooter of his own and often warned him they were “illegal and dangerous”. But she says a “split-second decision” to ride on the back of someone else’s cost him his life, and is now calling for tighter regulations around the vehicles.
“I was at my mum’s house on the afternoon of the crash, and I got a call from my partner,” Carly recalled. “Honestly, at first I just thought, ‘Oh what’s he done now?’
“I knew he had been knocked over, but I didn’t know – and didn’t want to believe – how serious it was.”
Carly raced to the scene and found her son already in a coma in the back of an ambulance. As he was taken to the hospital, she followed in what she described as the “longest” journey.
“I was just thinking, what’s he done? Is he alive? How bad is it?” she said. “I didn’t know what had happened at this point. I just knew he was in a coma.”
When she arrived, the police were waiting. They explained to her that Jacob had been on the back of an e-scooter that had been involved in a crash. Jacob had been rushed in for scans that revealed he had a large bleed to his brain. Medics decided to keep him in a coma in a bid to prevent his brain from swelling further and give his body a chance to rest.
“It was surreal seeing your baby like that,” Carly said. “I don’t even know how to explain it. It was horrible.”
Over the next week, Jacob was kept in intensive care, where he was cared for by doctors around the clock. But eight days after the collision, Jacob died after suffering a cardiac arrest.
“I felt so powerless,” Carly said. “It’s like things are taken out of your control, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You feel like you’re the mum, you need to protect them.
“I feel like when they told me, everything just got taken away from me. There was nothing I could do but just be there with him, tell him how much I love him, and tell him how much I’m proud of him. I’m proud of the fight that he gave.”
Almost five months on from the tragedy, Carly is putting her energy into trying to make sure what happened to Jacob doesn’t happen to anyone else. She has launched Jacob’s Journey, a campaign aimed at changing the law around e-scooter use and calling for tighter regulations.
Jacob’s Journey is petitioning the government to ban the sale and use of e-scooters to anyone under 18, as well as making helmets and protection mandatory and prohibiting the carrying of passengers. It is currently illegal to ride a privately owned e-scooter on a public road or pavement, but they are widely found for sale. There is no legal minimum age to purchase a private e-scooter in the UK.
“Jacob’s never, ever going to come back for me, so what I’m doing doesn’t make any difference to my life,” she continued. “I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart to save other people’s lives.”
As part of the campaign, she released a video telling the devastating story behind Jacob’s death. She said she hopes putting her life out there “in the rawest form” encourages other people to “stop and think” before they make the same choice.
“He left this front door and 18 minutes later, he was no longer here,” she said. “He got on the back of that scooter and didn’t think twice about the repercussions.
“That’s the message I’m trying to get across to people who make a split decision – this can be your outcome. I never thought it was going to happen to me, Jacob never thought it was going to happen to him.”
Greater Manchester Police is continuing to appeal for witnesses in connection with the collision, and has issued an appeal to trace the driver of a white 2015 onward Kia Venga who they believe could have “vital information”.
Detective Constable Steve Pennington said: “This was a truly tragic incident that has devastated a young boy’s family. Our thoughts remain with Jacob’s loved ones, and we continue to support his family as they navigate this unimaginable loss.
“We are very keen to speak to the driver of the white Kia Venga who may have witnessed the moments leading up to the collision. I want to be clear that they are not under suspicion – we believe they could have vital information that may help us understand what happened. If you are that driver, or know who they might be, please get in touch with us as soon as possible.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Road safety is a top priority. Every death on our roads is a tragedy and our thoughts are with everyone who has lost a loved one in this way.
“The use of private e-scooters is illegal in any public space. Riding rental scooters on the pavement is also illegal and local authorities should have a plan in place to tackle such behaviour.”
