Pedal coral injury: A case report

Corals are marine animals that live in compact colonies. They secret calcium carbonate to form a skeletal structure. Coral sting or abrasions usually cause erythema and localized pain with a mild local toxic reaction. We describe a large boney injury in the hallux due to retained coral fragments in a young patient who sustained a mild injury during water sports in the Red Sea. The coral fragment was not removed during the first visit to ER, causing chronic local inflammation and ultimately a large boney injury.Vigorous localized debridement must be performed in all marine injuries to remove all possible fragments that can lead to irreversible local boney injury.