A UK mother has issued an urgent warning to fellow parents after her five-year-old son suffered horrific injuries when his shoes were dragged into an escalator.
Helen Wood shared her story on Facebook, claiming 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 lost his big toe, and suffered extensive tissue and ligament damage to his foot while on holiday with his family in Dubai to celebrate his fifth birthday.
He was travelling down an escalator when his shoe and foot got stuck in the side of the escalator.
"He will need multiple operations to reconstruct the remaining part of his foot," his mother wrote.
Gulf News reports Stanley was rushed to a local hospital after the incident.
Stanley's toe was so mangled that surgeons were unable to reattach it to his foot.
"The entire tendon got pulled out right up to the calf muscle as the force of the machine was so strong," plastic surgeon Dr Mohan Rangaswamy, who performed Stanley's surgery, told Gulf News.
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"We needed to cover the open wound with a flap. The patient was left with a bone sticking out and a large wound, it was trauma situation and this was an avulsion wound where most of the tissues were injured at different levels."
Stanley's mother says she was not aware the shoes her son was wearing were "so susceptible to being dragged in to escalators".
"Since the accident has taken place, we have found online reports of child injuries dating back to 2007," she wrote.
"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."
Helen claimed parents were putting their children in "real danger" if they allowed their children to wear similar style shoes on escalators.
A 2010 study in the Journal of Paediatric Orthopedics found that 13 of 17 children admitted to one hospital with foot injuries in a two year period were wearing "rubber clogs".
The study found that "escalator-related foot injuries involving rubber clogs can result in severe crushing of the foot and even traumatic amputation."
"The broad toe-box design may give a false perception of the distance between the foot and the side of the escalator, whereas the 'softness' of these rubber clogs makes them vulnerable to crush by moving escalator steps.
"Injuries sustained can be significant and permanent. The potential dangers of escalators and rubber clogs must not be underestimated," the study said.
"Our holiday turned into a nightmare and it all happened so quickly giving us hardly any time to react," Helen told Gulf News.
"I will go back to UK and launch an awareness campaign to caution all parents and save our little children from such a horrific injury."
Mamamia has contacted Crocs for comment on Helen's claims.