Lesley Grinberg of Sandy Springs already hated her son's Crocs.

So when 7-year-old Ari found his shoes trapped in a Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport escalator on Wednesday, her only concern was his safety.

"I freaked, and I remembered what had happened in other cases," Grinberg said of escalators gobbling up the popular rubbery, clog-like shoes ... and the children's feet inside.

Ari escaped unharmed, but his was one of three incidents this week in which children's shoes were grabbed by the airport escalators, and among at least half a dozen dating to the spring.

Two other young boys suffered injuries at the airport this week when their soft shoes got caught in the escalator -- and similar accidents have been reported across the country.

A 7-year-old boy who was injured Tuesday was wearing Crocs, said airport spokesman Herschel Grangent. He suffered lacerations on a foot, Grangent said.

And a 4-year-old who suffered injuries Thursday was wearing flip-flops, Grangent said, though a representative from the company that maintains the airport's escalators described them as sandals. Grangent did not know that boy's condition.

Both children were injured after their shoes got caught between the moving stairs and the sides, or skirts, of the escalators, Grangent said.

"The issue has been the footwear that people have been wearing," Grangent said. "I don't have any specific information, but we have seen some indications that it is happening all over the world in malls and other airports and other buildings."

The state Labor Department, which is responsible for inspecting elevators, has documented four other similar incidents at Hartsfield since April of last year, according to public records. Three involved children wearing Crocs.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a warning about such shoes in May. At the time, the commission said it had tracked 77 such "entrapment" incidents since January 2006, with about half resulting in injury.

Crocs spokeswoman Tia Mattson said her company's polyurethane shoes don't render wearers any more susceptible to escalator accidents than any other shoes.

Two weeks ago Andrew Meyer, one of the children whose accidents were recently reported by the Labor Department, suffered several broken toes when his Crocs were caught in a Hartsfield-Jackson escalator, said his mother, Belinda Skelton.

"Two-thirds of the way down, I heard, pop, pop, snap ... what I realized was Andrew's toes breaking," Skelton said. "We came within millimeters of losing [his] big toe." Two of Andrew's toes were broken, with one of them needing a pin, the skin cut to the bone.

Andrew, she said, is recovering after surgery and is on his second cast, unable to put any weight on his right foot. "You try keeping a 4-year-old from walking," said Skelton, who produces the Neal Boortz show on WSB radio, a station that is owned by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's parent company, Cox Enterprises Inc.

Asked for copies of this week's accident reports concerning the escalators, Grangent referred the AJC to the company that manages them for the airport: Atlanta Airlines Terminal Corp. Kim Vagher, the corporation's executive director, referred the AJC to the state Department of Labor for copies of the reports.

Earl Everett, who is in charge of the Labor Department's elevator inspections, said his agency's reports on this week's accidents are not yet complete. But his inspectors have examined the escalators since the accidents and have determined they meet state code and are safe, Everett said.

"They are very safe for people to get on them. But if you are wearing Crocs, stand in the center of the stair," said Everett, who happened to be wearing a pair of camouflage-colored Crocs as he spoke to the AJC in his Atlanta office.

This week, Hartsfield posted signs and started airing public announcements throughout the airport warning people to be careful while wearing soft shoes on the escalators, Grangent said.

Marietta's David Gray said his then-3-year-old daughter Natalie was hurt when her Crocs were caught in a Hartsfield escalator in April. But Gray blames the escalator rather than the shoe manufacturer.

"I think it could happen with any shoe," he said. "The fact that a small foot can get caught under that [escalator] skirt is a problem."

Natalie Gray got her feet wedged in between the escalator step and the skirt. No bones were broken, and Gray said he learned a lesson.

"In hindsight, parents shouldn't be taking their small kids on the escalator," he said. "Not when you're traveling with baggage and don't have hands free to watch your child."

-- Staff writer John Perry contributed to this article.