If there is a “swarm” of bees, a “herd” of cows, and a “pack” of dogs… then we must note the recent “congregation” of Croc lawsuits. No, not like the gators, but the shoes.
The Orlando Sentinel broke the story of Sanjay and Marisela Prakash, the parents of a 4-year old who was injured when his Croc shoe was caught in the Miami International Airport escalator. Hello… Miami Herald? That probably should have been YOUR scoop. A Colorado website indicates the suit alleges punitive damages and seeks $3-6 million dollars.
Apparently the soft shoe can get smooshed into the sides of the escalator and, because Crocs are so soft, the whole shoe can get tugged into the mechanism. Our friends at The Consumerist pulled out a nice illustration of the type damage for us here.
A quick Google search suggests Croc-sportin’-children have been besieged in airports from Denver to New York to Miami. According to this CBS report, the Croc company had sent a 16-page report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) . The Commission had already known of 77 Croc incidents — to everyone’s surprise, the company admitted to another 109 more incidents.
Meanwhile, the CPSC estimated that there were 90 billion escalator riders in 2007, resulting in 11,000 injuries. Most of those injuries are falls while 10% involve SOMETHING getting stuck in the machine. See May 18, 2008 press release, Know the Steps to Safety When Using Escalators, Some shoes more likely than others to pose risk.
The Orlando Sentinel article mentioned that Crocs had issued a news release that it would put warnings on the shoes as of Spring 2009; our informal peek at Crocs.com didn’t reveal that announcement. Hmm.
Step lightly.