Mum issues warning over the dangers of popular shoe

UK mum shares warning after her five-year-old son suffered horrific injuries when his shoes were caught in an escalator.

Helen Wood shared her story on Facebook to raise awareness and hopefully prevent another accident. Helen claims that popular children’s shoes Crocs were unsafe to be worn by kids.

“Child Crocs are dangerous and shouldn’t ever be worn on escalators”, she wrote.

“Our beautiful 5 year old son Stanley has sustained horrific and life changing injuries as a result of his Crocs being dragged into a moving escalator.

Stanley has lost his big toe and has extensive tissue and ligament damage to the underside of his foot. He will need multiple operations to reconstruct the remaining part of his foot.

We were not aware that these shoes were so susceptible to being dragged in to escalators, but since the accident has taken place, we have found online reports of child injuries dating back to 2007.

escalator

One day he was running and skipping, the next he was in an emergency ward with life changing injuries. We are shocked and heartbroken that this has happened and angry that it has happened so many times before.

We were not aware of the dangers as it has not been widely publicised and now we think it needs to be something that is more commonly known.

Child Crocs and similar style shoes are potentially lethal and letting your children wear them on escalators is putting them in real danger.”

The below video demonstrates using a dummy exactly what happened:

Other people have shared they saw similar things happen with thongs and even gumboots. Always be careful with kids on escalators.

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16 Comments

- - mom94125 said
  - 17 Oct 2017
    11:17 pm
i never considered this but i will definately be careful in the future. my area doesn’t have any step escalators but still has the “flat” type. this is a sad thing for anybody to have to deal with but it is great cautionary advice to share with others who might not realise this danger either

- - ella12 said
  - 22 Mar 2017
    4:41 pm
Oh dear hope he will be ok soon.

- - tessie said
  - 05 Mar 2017
    2:59 pm
I’ve always been wary of escalators and I notice that my boys did the same as me. As we got to the bottom we jumped off instead of just stepping off. Seen too many accidents for my peace of mind.
Wishing Stanley a speedy recovery.

- - Ellen said
  - 03 Mar 2017
    2:49 am
Think you have this danger with every shoe ! Think it’s not the danger of the shoe but the danger of the escalator !

- - mom101628 said
  - 02 Mar 2017
    10:05 pm
Think Crocs look ugly so my kids have never worn them – they are happy now after seeing this article. Thanks for sharing.

- - sars_angelchik said
  - 02 Mar 2017
    11:16 am
My kids wear similar, more fashionable, cheaper versions. I’ve never had a problem thus far, but will definitely be taking more care on escalators. But as another lady on here said, I imagine that other shoes such as thongs could cause similar injuries if proper care wasn’t taken.

- - rovermum said
  - 02 Mar 2017
    9:22 am
We’ve never been croc wearers, but I imagine a similar thing could happen with thongs. You just always need to be really careful on escalators I think, no matter what shoes your wearing.

- - mum4107 said
  - 02 Mar 2017
    5:34 am
Poor little kid.
I personally don’t think crocss are to blames though.
Perhaps they should test with other types of shoes also
It could in fact be the escalators that need to be modified

- - mom93821 said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    8:58 pm
I have seen someone get their shoe and foot caught in an escalator. It was not crocs, but sneakers, it appears it can occur with other shoes too.

- - june11 said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    7:47 pm
There has been other complaints about these “shoes”. I think it was connected to the “materials” they are made from effecting your skin on your feet.

- - rachel1970 said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    7:26 pm
It’s not just crocs, you always need to be careful on escalators. I lost the tip of my big toe many years ago on one, was wearing thongs.

- - BellaB said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    7:20 pm
A friend had a similar near miss when wearing flowing trousers. You just have to be careful.

- - cherz said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    5:48 pm
Actually read about this a little while ago in the news. But I feel these shoes are no more dangerous than many others thongs, slides, buckles they all have the potential to get caught. The lesson here is one must take care on these moving travelators.

- - twinningmum said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    2:16 pm
oh my gosh! poor kid! thats so awful. I’ll definitely be keeping this in mind. what a tradgedy. surely there is a way to make that escalator safer

- - mom112217 said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    11:40 am
Hope Stanely will recover and wishing him all the best for the future.

- - mom160421 said
  - 01 Mar 2017
    11:11 am
I cannot see how these particular shoes are any more dangerous than, say, thongs.