A mother of two children has shared her experience of how her choice of footwear, Crocs, played a significant role in preventing a potential amputation after she accidentally shot herself in the foot.
On March 31 of the previous year, Marissa Jones was visiting a friend’s home in San Antonio, Texas, when she noticed a gun placed near their bedroom door.
The 26-year-old nurse and mother of two decided to move the firearm under her friend’s bed to ensure it was out of reach of her one-year-old daughter, Ava.
Unfortunately, as she attempted to push the gun under the bed with her foot, it accidentally struck the bed frame, causing it to discharge and shoot her in the foot.
She recounted the incident: “Under the bed there’s a pole to stand the bed up and I guess the back of the gun hit that and it just went off. It happened so fast.”
Marissa described how the gunshot hit her ‘in the right foot’ and she immediately jumped onto the bed in pain.
With an estimated 40 pellets impacting her, Marissa attributes her Crocs shoes to the fact that her foot wasn’t completely destroyed.
“I was wearing my Crocs and the pellets actually went through my Crocs – my Croc saved my foot,” she stated. “If I’d been barefoot everything would’ve been shattered. I would’ve lost my foot, it was a complete freak accident.”
Marissa was taken to University Hospital where she stayed for 10 days.
Doctors managed to remove 20 of the 40 pellets from her foot, and Marissa is expected to undergo a skin graft to aid in healing the wound caused by the incident.
Although she still depends on crutches and a wheelchair, the mother expresses gratitude that the situation did not escalate to the ‘worst-case scenario’ which she frequently replays in her mind.
She hopes and ‘prays’ to ‘eventually’ be able to ‘walk on’ her foot again, but she feels ‘so lucky’ for having worn her Crocs.
“I thank the brand so much. I feel so grateful I was wearing them that day,” she added. “I will continue to buy every single pair I lay my eyes on. I always wore my Crocs before this, I’m a Croc-wearing girl.”
Marissa mentioned that her friends feel ‘really bad’ about the incident and she now aims to educate herself on ‘gun safety’.
Most importantly, she reflected: “I feel lucky it wasn’t my hand or face or even my daughter.”