Parents sue Crocs, hotel for injuries to son’s foot
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Parents of a toddler injured while wearing Crocs on an escalator at Hilton Hawaiian Village in 2014 have filed a lawsuit against the footwear company and the resort.
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
Associated Press
A Texas couple is suing footwear maker Crocs and a Waikiki resort after their 2-year-old son’s foot got caught in an escalator while the family visited Hawaii for an oral surgeon convention.
The lawsuit says the Crocs shoes were “negligently and improperly designed,” while Hilton Hawaiian Village also was negligent in maintaining the escalator’s safety.
According to the lawsuit, the escalator tore off an extensive section of skin from the toddler’s left foot, requiring emergency surgery.
Flora Kim and David Kang of Dallas were attending the annual meeting of the American Association of Oral Maxillofacial Surgeons in September 2014 with their son. Their lawsuit said they were leaving the convention’s opening ceremony in a resort ballroom when the boy’s foot became entangled and sucked into a space between a step and the sidewall of the escalator.
“Eventually a bystander was able to activate an emergency stop button, but not until (the boy) had traveled almost the entire distance between floors while his foot was painfully trapped in the moving escalator,” said the lawsuit, initially filed in Hawaii state court in June but transferred to federal court this week.
The boy’s foot was trapped for nearly an hour before a rescue team arrived with proper equipment. He spent two days at a Honolulu hospital after emergency surgery and received additional medical care in Texas. The boy had two more surgeries — one to repair skin on his injured foot and one due to complications from the skin graft site, the lawsuit said.
Crocs policy is not to comment on pending litigation, company spokesman Patrick Rich said in an email Thursday. Hilton representatives didn’t immediately return messages Thursday.
Crocs knew as early as 2008 that children suffered severe injuries when the shoes got trapped in small spaces on escalators, the lawsuit said.
According to reports appearing across the United States and as far away as Singapore and Japan, entrapments occur because of two of the biggest selling points of shoes like Crocs: their flexibility and grip. Some report the shoes get caught in the “teeth” at the bottom or top of the escalator, or in the crack between the steps and the side of the escalator.
The reports of serious injuries have all involved young children.
The boy was holding his mother’s hand while they rode the escalator, the family’s Dallas lawyers said. The escalator severed tendons and muscles and broke bones. “In essence, his foot was completely crushed and destroyed,” one of their lawyers, Leslie Chaggaris, said. There’s concern there’s permanent damage to his foot and growth plate, she said, adding that the child had night terrors for many months afterward.
11 responses to “Parents sue Crocs, hotel for injuries to son’s foot”
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Wow these parents are putting their responsibilities onto someone else. Frivolous lawsuit, when will it end. If you are a responsible parent, you should have been looking out for the safety of your child and not rerlying on someone else.
I read many years ago that “Croccs” should Never be worn on an esculator. But then you know how these “liberal” judges love to give money away. How can Anyone wear those uncomfortable footware. Tried once and never again, yuck ( psonal opinion)
‘These parents’ are likely more highly educated than you could ever hope to be. They were attending an annual meeting of the Am. Assoc. of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons, a highly educated and elite group of specialized physicians. So they didn’t take this lightly. Also, if you’d done a little research, you might have seen that much has been written about the dangers of Crocs and escalators, as in The New York Times: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/kids-crocs-and-escalators/?_r=0
OMF surgeons are not exactly brain surgeons but rather glorified dentists, and these parents were obviously lacking in the parenting department. There is inherent danger everywhere that competent parents deal with on a daily basis. Quit wasting tax dollars and courtroom time with these stupid attempts to blame someone else when they should be looking in the mirror.
This is so typical of today’s parents. Everything has to be someone else’s responsibility. If you understand this, you understand how a guy like Obama got elected twice . ‘Responsibility’ has nothing to do with it any more.
Yes, this is in the “business” category, all right.
Exactly what I was thinking, wright! Why is this under ‘business’ as opp. to headlines?? Those hard-working, fast-thinking SA editors at work, again.
What a bunch o’ Croc…One of the parent’s should’ve carried him. I would never let a child that young stand on an escalator. If older people had this kind of accident happen to them before, it can easily happen to a child. A 2-year-old doesn’t have quick enough reaction to get off an escalator by themselves.
Feel sorry for the kid but one of the parents should have carried him. Even I am leery of the dangers of using an escalator. Maybe time to invent a safer mode of transporting people between floors.
So many kids are hurt on escalators. That’s why they put the brushes on the side of them now so it irritates the ankles so you move your foot before it gets mangled. Those parents are just lame.
The line “the reports of serious injuries have all involved young children” says it all. That hotel escalator must have spotted the boy, thought he made for a good snack and grabbed him like a shark! Funny how elderly and adults all avoid the same injury huh? Fact: those “parents” brought Junior for a working vacay but did not look to see where he put his feet. Kid paid the price and now the so-called doctor expects Crocs and HHV to cough up a windfall. Can you say frivolous lawsuit?