Cycle-related injuries have "more than doubled" in the Illawarra during the recent lockdown, with authorities calling on people to ride within their capabilities.
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NSW Ambulance Inspector Norm Rees said before the pandemic emergency services may get called to one or two incidents per month, whereas they spiked during the past three months with paramedics called to two or three each week.
"I went up to Mount Keira bike track the other day and it was a 49-year-old, it was the first time out and he went over a jump and come off, broke ribs and gave himself a ... collapsed lung," Inspector Rees said.
"The day before I got a 14-year-old that broke both his wrists and his leg. We pull out some fairly significant injuries out of [mountain bike trails in the escarpment] - facial injuries where they've gone over the handlebar and face-planted after they've gone over a jump."
The majority of incidents were specifically mountain bike related, he said, with patients ranging in ages from tweens to men aged in their 50s.
"I've just finished my week on and I went into the bush twice, and one of the [Special Operations paramedics I was working with] said it was his second on this week," Inspector Rees said.
He encouraged people to get outdoors and enjoy what the region has to offer, but for bike riders to "wear all their guards and their helmets ... and to ride within their capabilities".
It comes as bike related injuries in children and teens increased by 78 per cent from June 26 to October 14 compared to the same time last year across the Sydney Children's Hospital Network.
Over this period, 173 children and adolescents (including several from the Illawarra) were admitted to The Children's Hospital at Westmead and Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick, compared to just 97 in total during the same period in 2020.
"We have seen patients in our Emergency Departments whose helmets have been split in two from the impact of their fall," trauma surgeon Dr S Soundappan said.
"It is a very stark reminder of just how serious the damage could have been, had that protective measure not been in place."
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