Feet In Sneakers Wash Ashore Again
Morbid alert! Turn away now if you're a bit squeamish. New Balance is the latest brand to have the unpleasant honour of having one of their models wash up on a beach with a human foot stuck in it. The sneak was discovered near Pier 68 in Seattle yesterday morning by cleaning volunteers. 'They were cleaning up trash at the park and came across a tennis shoe,' Port of Seattle spokesman Peter McGraw told the Seattle Times. 'Upon further examination, they found there was a foot in it.'
The owner of the foot has not been identified yet, it's not known whether there was some , or if it was some , either way, it's pretty awful. The incident recalls the spate of foot-in-sneaker discoveries washed up from the Salish Sea that began in 2007 in which no other body parts were found. The strange phenomenon has never been solved, but there are several theories about why sneakers and feet wash-up. The diabolical hypothesis is that folks have had their top halves dipped in concrete or weighed down somehow and dumped in the sea, then over time the body has decomposed and the brittle ankles have broken off first and floated to the surface, carried off by the new-school lightweight buoyant sneaks. Less human-evil theories credit the wild 2004 Asian Tsunami pushing the feet cross-continental and the plain "justforgettaboutitweirdstuffhappens" excuse.
The only silver lining to this story is that it proves sneakers are pretty durable. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer says that he had recorded the serial numbers of sneakers found in the ocean and found that they continue to float and be wearable after three years swimming!