Crocs

The unique looking love-child of sandals and clogs, Crocs, have become quite popular for people of all ages and worn for all kinds of different activities. But Crocs have proven to be much more dangerous than they look. Don’t let the bright colors and harmless, silly, utilitarian look fool you. Crocs have contributed to serious injuries that are the basis for many multi-million dollar lawsuits. If you think Crocs look like they belong in the yard with yard work, it’s because they do. They are great for gripping surfaces, even wet ones, which has proven to be a problem when it comes to children and moving escalators. The sole of the Crocs shoe has a propensity for sticking to surfaces for no apparent reason, often causing stubbed toes, but sometimes worse.

Every Crocs injury lawsuit currently underway involves moving escalators. The material of the shoe crumbles into the folding escalator step, pulling the foot in with it, and severely injuring people. It has gotten so bad that Crocs are now being banned in certain places, like hospitals, and cautioned against with signs on escalators in subways and shopping malls. Crocs, made in Colorado by Crocs Inc., are worn by children as young as 2 years old and certain styles come in sizes as small as four-fifths. Several severe injuries have involved extremely young children, a two year old girl lost her big toe on an escalator in Singapore, and a three year old boy was injured at the Atlanta, Georgia airport, one of five Crocs escalator accidents at that airport to happen in less than a year. The U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reported that 75 escalator accidents, out of 77 that were reported between January 2006 and May 2008, involved “soft-sided” flexible clog-type shoes.

The parents of a three year old girl who had her big toe mutilated at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York filed a seven million dollar lawsuit against Crocs, Inc. in 2008. The parent’s attorney, Andrew Laskin, described “the skin peeled off her toe. It’s a pretty horrifying injury.” Laskin offered a valuable, cautionary piece of advice about Crocs: “Just because a pair of shoes comes in pretty colors with Disney Characters on it doesn’t make it safe.” Laskin also accused Crocs of knowing about the dangers of Crocs for “a considerable period of time” but has chosen to ignore the problem. Many critics of these Crocs lawsuits have pointed to the misuse of escalators by the children that were injured. How responsible a two year old is for knowing proper escalator procedure is certainly an interesting point?  The bottom line is simple. Mixing a soft-sided, loose-fitting, flexible shoe out of sticky plastic material that is fodder for collapsing escalator steps with extremely small children sizes is causing very serious injuries all over the world.