The question to be asked is: Would you rather crush your toes beyond repair or chance the steel bending at just the right angle (or should I say wrong angle) and have your toes amputated completely?
We have had numerous customers in our store, Work Wear of Central New Hampshire, that insist on not having safety footwear as they don't want to drop something on their toes, and have the steel cut their toes off. There are also several theories out there that contradict each other. As the owner of a retail store that sells work boots, and yes, many are safety toe rated, what do I think?
Now before we go further, you need to understand that I am not an expert in this field. This is just little 'ol me blogging about what I hear in the store and what I see in the real world.
Another key piece of information in today's world you should remember, is that not all safety toe footwear is comprised of steel. There are many other options available that will behave differently and have varied characteristics from steel. So, know what you have and know their uniqueness.
So is the myth confirmed, plausible or busted? First I turn to the experts. A few months back I happened to catch an episode of the infamous MythBusters on the Discovery Channel that tested just this exact theory. Unfortunately, I was not able to record it and to date I am unable to find the clip on their web site or on YouTube. But I have found information on the myth they tested and the results they came up with.
Thank you MythBusters for helping to set the record straight - hopefully!
The following is from the MythBusters:
Steel Cap Amputation
Myth: Steel-toed boots are more dangerous than regular boots -- if something falls on the boots, the steel can curl in and cut off your toes
They were able to find one occurrence of amputation while wearing steel-toed boots occurring in real life. In 2002, an Australian worker lost his 3rd toe when some steel pipes feel from a forklift.
Adam and Jamie constructed various tests for this myth using both a guillotine toe-smasher and an arbor-press. Initially they used frangible feet that Adam made, but it turned out that they made a mistake in assuming that their frangible feet would model real human feet being crushed. For better comparisons they ended up using clay.
Clay is the method ANSI uses to test boots.
At the official test height of 3ft with 75lbs there was 0.5" of clay compression with the steel-toe boot, which is exactly to spec. The regular boot failed horribly, with the clay being completely splattered.
They used an arbor press to squish boots to their total failure point. The steel-toe boot was able to take 6000lbs of pressure before total failure; the regular boot was only able to take about 1200lbs, which was hard to measure as it failed so quickly.
Shearing attachment tests
In order to test a worst case scenario, they made a shearing attachment, which was a thin metal plate that would hit the boot on edge.
They mounted the shearing attachment to the arbor press: at 750 lbs it broke every bone in the frangible foot; at 1400 lbs it severed all the bones in the feet.
They then mounted the shearing attachment on the guillotine and raised it to it's max height of 6ft and max weight of 400lbs. The blade glanced off the steel plate, shearing the entire shoe in half. They tested again and got the same result. In this particular scenario, were a heavy blade to drop on your foot you could actually lose more of your foot as the steel cap could direct the glade further up the foot as it did in the test. This isn't the failure mode described in the tests, though, and regardless of what type of boot you used there would be amputation.
Mythbusted: They had to mount a blade in order to get amputation with the steel toe boot and all their other tests showed much more damage to the foot when regular boots are used.
My two cents: If I am going to drop something on my toes that is heavy enough to bend steel, I think I would rather have that safety factor between my toes and that heavy object. It's like wearing a seat belt; ya there have been cases where a seat belt has trapped or held someone that ultimately caused more damage than good. But in reality, the percentage of those that it has saved far exceeds that. I am in favor of having safety toe boots, and I wear my seat belt every day!
The following is from the MythBusters:
Steel Cap Amputation
Myth: Steel-toed boots are more dangerous than regular boots -- if something falls on the boots, the steel can curl in and cut off your toes
They were able to find one occurrence of amputation while wearing steel-toed boots occurring in real life. In 2002, an Australian worker lost his 3rd toe when some steel pipes feel from a forklift.
Adam and Jamie constructed various tests for this myth using both a guillotine toe-smasher and an arbor-press. Initially they used frangible feet that Adam made, but it turned out that they made a mistake in assuming that their frangible feet would model real human feet being crushed. For better comparisons they ended up using clay.
Clay is the method ANSI uses to test boots.
At the official test height of 3ft with 75lbs there was 0.5" of clay compression with the steel-toe boot, which is exactly to spec. The regular boot failed horribly, with the clay being completely splattered.
They used an arbor press to squish boots to their total failure point. The steel-toe boot was able to take 6000lbs of pressure before total failure; the regular boot was only able to take about 1200lbs, which was hard to measure as it failed so quickly.
Shearing attachment tests
In order to test a worst case scenario, they made a shearing attachment, which was a thin metal plate that would hit the boot on edge.
They mounted the shearing attachment to the arbor press: at 750 lbs it broke every bone in the frangible foot; at 1400 lbs it severed all the bones in the feet.
They then mounted the shearing attachment on the guillotine and raised it to it's max height of 6ft and max weight of 400lbs. The blade glanced off the steel plate, shearing the entire shoe in half. They tested again and got the same result. In this particular scenario, were a heavy blade to drop on your foot you could actually lose more of your foot as the steel cap could direct the glade further up the foot as it did in the test. This isn't the failure mode described in the tests, though, and regardless of what type of boot you used there would be amputation.
Mythbusted: They had to mount a blade in order to get amputation with the steel toe boot and all their other tests showed much more damage to the foot when regular boots are used.
My two cents: If I am going to drop something on my toes that is heavy enough to bend steel, I think I would rather have that safety factor between my toes and that heavy object. It's like wearing a seat belt; ya there have been cases where a seat belt has trapped or held someone that ultimately caused more damage than good. But in reality, the percentage of those that it has saved far exceeds that. I am in favor of having safety toe boots, and I wear my seat belt every day!
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