From yesterday’s Alternet:

“Crocs can kill,” screamed the front page of The Sun last Wednesday. The paper reported the banning of the shoes by some Sheffield hospitals, apparently because of claims that static electricity generated by Croc-shod medical staff could knock out vital equipment.

Elsewhere, Crocs have been blamed for children’s feet being mangled by escalators, for causing wearers to slip and fall when the shoes get wet, for spreading infection in hospitals, and for providing insufficient foot support.

[snip]

A dedicated Crocs Accidents blog includes newspaper clippings with gory pictures of mangled feet. In November 2006, a Singapore newspaper reported the case of two-year-old Shiyr Chong, whose big toe was ripped off after her Croc became trapped at the end of an escalator.

[snip]

Mike O’Neill, a foot surgeon and spokesperson for the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, says that wearing appropriate shoes in surgery is important, and not just to prevent the build-up of static. “You get a lot of spillage in theatre,” he says. “Orthopaedic surgeons wear Wellington boots. So do many gynaecologists — the last thing you want is to have a pregnant woman saying, ‘My water’s broken,’ and you tell her ‘Yes, I know, it’s just gone through the holes in my Crocs’.”

[snip]

Whether or not there is any validity to the claims against them, Crocs show no sign of losing popularity. Started in 2002 by a pair of American sailors looking for the ideal deck shoe, Crocs has sold more than 20 million pairs of shoes in the past 12 months — and Croc haters will dread the arrival this winter of Croc Mammoths, a fur-lined shoe that looks set to keep clogs on the high street all year round.

You can read the whole article without my edits here.

Two observations: Alternet seems to be venturing into apparel stories as of late, take A Social History of the Bra for instance.

And second, check out some of these latest Crocs - some of them are pretty cool, admit it. And not just because Crocs are so ugly that anything basically looks good next to them. I’d seriously wear the ‘celeste canvas’ or the ‘georgie adult’ with pride. And now that they’re dangerous too?

Who doesn’t trip on a little risk from their footwear?