This is the sickening moment a young boy speeding on a Lime Bike smashes into a grandmother, leaving her with a life changing injuries.

Jane Ouartsi was walking across St Giles Square in central London with her partner  when a cyclist crashed into her – and then fled the scene moments later.

She was left like ‘a broken china doll’, with a fractured collarbone, two spinal fractures and a broken femur.

Since then, Ms Ouartsi has spent 36 days in hospital, had three operations and been forced to learn to walk again.

The grandmother of two has also been diagnosed with PTSD, and says her and her partner’s lives ‘will never be the same’ as they battle to get justice.

Police took statements from witnesses at the time but pursued no further action. Ms Ouartsi said no compensation has been offered by Lime, which has around 40,000 bikes in London.

She told the Daily Mail: ‘We are going through hell, our lives have been ruined by this. I’m still struggling with all kinds of health problems and am barely able to speak about what happened.

‘I’m too scared to go out now because every time I see a bike I think it’s going to run me over. All we want is justice and for the person who did this to be held accountable. But nobody is helping us.’

This is the moment a boy aged ten smashed into Jane Ouartsi ash she walked in central London in August 2023 

Her partner of 35 years, Dave Mathias, was with her at the time of the crash, which happened after they had gone to see an art exhibition together.

He revealed that moments after, he attempted to take a photograph of the cyclist, but another woman intervened.

‘She said that it was her son who’s only ten and that I couldn’t take a photograph of him. They just left the bike on the ground and ran off. Since then, we’ve not been able to find out who the cyclist was,’ he said.

‘I got a good look at him. He was just a young kid and shouldn’t have been on a Lime bike in the first place.

Mr Mathias said he reported the matter to police, but they closed the case after telling him they were unable to establish the identity of the cyclist.

Lime claimed that the bike had not been hired through their app and was being used illegally, which meant they could not identify the cyclist either.

Mr Mathias said: ‘We’ve been abandoned by everybody. I’ve got the QR code of the bike, but Lime said they couldn’t help us because it had been broken into. But when that happens, these bikes make a loud noise when you peddle them.

‘We’d have heard this boy cycling towards us, but we didn’t hear a thing. I don’t understand why Lime isn’t able to investigate this matter and tell us who he is.’

Jane is pictured here laying on the pavement being tended to by members of the public

She suffered a broken femur, a fractured collar bone and two spinal fractures requiring three operations and has been battling other crippling health complications since the incident

Mr Mathias, who works as a cabinet maker and joiner, estimates that he has lost thousands of pounds by having to take time off work to help look after his partner.

He was informed by a lawyer that they would only be able to seek any compensation until it could be established who was cycling at the time of the incident.

And despite repeated requests for Lime to investigate, he has not heard from the company since January. ‘It’s a total disgrace how we’ve been treated,’ he said.

Lime is one of a number of dockless hire E-bike operators, which pay councils to operate in their borough.

Riders pay to use the bikes by the minute, and Lime says it provides users with free third-party liability insurance, though Ms Ouartsi has not received any compensation.

‘If an elderly person had got my injuries, they wouldn’t have survived,’ she said. ‘I heard my spine and my body split… I was just a broken china doll.’

Ms Ouartsi has called for the mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan to clamp down on dockless E-bikes using the English Devolution Bill, which recently received royal assent.

This could create a tighter set of parking and licensing rules across the capital to replace the different regulations that exist across individual boroughs.

Sir Sadiq previously said the sector was ‘like the Wild West’ and that ‘we desperately need regulation’. The Bill, he added, shows that ‘lobbying [the Government] has paid off’.

Mr Mathias said new legislation could not come quickly enough.

‘If you ride any other motorised vehicle, you have to have a licence and cannot ride them on the pavement. It should be no different for Lime bikes,’ he said.

‘[The rider] was going as fast as they can go. I turned round and Jane was falling to the ground in slow motion. It was a real shock. She was screaming.

‘I know they have the technology to slow down these Lime bikes in certain areas so why not do that so this doesn’t happen?’

Jane’s partner Dave Mathias say that oboth of their lives have been ruined by the accident

In total, she has spent 36 days in hospital and has also been diagnosed with PTSD claiming that her and her partner’s lives ‘will never be the same’ as they battle to get justice

The accident and her three operations has meant she has been forced to learn to walk again

Jane gave the Daily Mail pictures of her injuries to highlight the dangers of Lime Bikes 

Riders pay to use the bikes by the minute, and Lime says it provides users with free third-party liability insurance, though Ms Ouartsi has not received any compensation

A spokesman for the company said: ‘Our thoughts are with Jane and her family, and we are sorry for the distress this incident has caused. We take incidents like this extremely seriously. This situation has been carefully reviewed and handled in line with our policies.

‘Safety informs everything we do at Lime — from how we design and maintain our vehicles, to our rider education, and how we work with cities.’

The rise of E-bikes has been controversial, with concerns over inconsiderate parking and dangerous riding.

Last year, it was reported that trauma surgeons had even coined the term ‘Lime bike leg’ as they were seeing so many severe lower-leg injuries in patients who were crushed under the weight of heavy electric bikes that had tipped over.

Ms Ouartsi is not the first victim to have gained attention.

Sandy Peters – a single mother in her 50s – was walking to her son’s 21st birthday celebrations in Carshalton, Sutton, when a teenager riding a Forest bike smashed into her last October.

She was sent flying into a brick wall – suffering a broken nose, upper jaw, cheek bones, and a misaligned lower jaw. There was so much blood gushing from her nose and mouth her son feared she would die.