ABOUT

KEVIN & THE TOE JAMMER STORY

Hello, I’m, Kevin Clement, the Inventor of the Toe Jammer Footplate and this is the story of why and how the Toe Jammer was invented.

In 2006, I got involved with FEMA after Hurricane Charley devastated my home town of Punta Gorda, FL. Soon after, I started a business with friend doing marine construction, building docks, boatlifts and golf course features. In September of 2008, Hurricane Ike hit Houston Texas. Due to my experience after Hurricane Charley and working with FEMA, I received a call asking if I could come out to Texas to do canal clean-up and dock repair.

While I was working in Texas, things were going well, so one night my coworker John and I decided to go out and grab a bite to eat. After dinner on the way back to our place, we were in a horrible accident.

I woke up laying face down in the mud. I could see the truck laying on its side and I was facing at the bottom of the truck.

As I tried to get up, I could not. I was numb from the waist down. I called out for my friend, after a few minutes he came from around the side of the truck. In a daze, asking me what had happened. It all happened so quickly and we were so rattled by the accident, I still, to this day, I have no memory of how we ended up like this.

John dialed 9-1-1, however, since our phones were from a 941 area code, they called 9-1-1 operators back in Florida. We had no clue where we were. They tried to track the phone but of course, the phone died after about 10 minutes. We laid out there in the mud until around 6am when we saw head lights coming down the road. John ran out to the road to flag down the car. Luckily, the driver stopped and called 9-1-1.

I was then airlifted by helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston Texas where I spent 2 months in Texas Institute of Rehab and Recovery (TIRR) strapped into a full upper body cast.

Once I was out of the hospital, I really didn’t take it seriously. I thought I would get better and that it  couldn’t really be happening to me.

Not long after being in the wheelchair I noticed that my feet were always sliding off the plate and I was banging my toes into everything causing cuts, breaks and tears in my feet. I was leaving blood trails through the house and wouldn’t even realize until I saw the blood or noticed my feet jumping around.

Growing up in Florida, I never wore shoes or if I did it was flip flops or sandals of some sort. Getting into my wheelchair I wouldn’t want to put on shoes just to go into the kitchen for a glass of water, but of course that is always when I would bash my feet. 2am, half asleep, dark house, turn around and WHAM right into the cabinets! I was always causing some sort of damage that I would have to take care of before going back to bed.

After the 3rd or 4th time this happened I started looking all over the internet for some sort of foot protection for wheelchairs. The only things that I could find were big bulky cages that protected everything, but they were not practical for everyday use. They added a lot of weight to your chair and made it difficult to load and unload from your vehicle. I couldn’t find anything that would protect your toes and keep your feet contained to one spot so that they are not sliding around and off the factory footrest. With no luck online, I rigged up some things that would help to keep my feet safe and always had to remember to put on shoes.

After several months of recovery, I decided to get back into Karate to help with balance, my mental health and to learn to defend myself from a wheelchair. Around 2014, I got to talking with my Karate Sensei, who also happened to be a metal fabricator. I asked him to build me a foot plate with a toe guard on it. I drew it and explained to him what I was looking to accomplish with it. He welded something together for me. Once I received the plate, I then drilled out the holes for the attachment bolts and the other holes for decoration and water and dirt drainage. I had it on my wheelchair for the longest time and even devised a way to use it in martial arts almost like a real foot. I was able to kick or sweep my feet giving me a chance to defend myself or get away.

A few years later, I started working at Bayfront Wellness Center as a Personal Trainer. I was going there for some of my physical therapy and volunteering once a week for something to do. Eventually, they offered me a paying position as a personal trainer. It was when I started working at the Wellness Center that other people started to notice the protective plate. The doctors, physical therapists, and other people in wheelchairs would always comment and ask me where I got it. I was always happy to tell them I had designed it myself and had it made. After so many doctors and physical therapists inquired about it, I started to look into having it patented. I know I can’t be the only paraplegic with the problem of banging up their feet.

With the Toe Jammer Footplate, once you place your feet into the plate you can almost forget about them because they are contained and protected from just about anything you could run into. The Toe Jammer Footplate has a 1 ½” wide x 1/8” thick toe guard that protects your toes and halfway down the sides of your feet to prevent your feet from sliding off the plate and getting snagged on something.

I hope that the Toe Jammer can be as helpful to fellow paraplegic as it has been to me, making everyday life safer and easier for people who are confined to a wheelchair.

"Since having the Toe Jammer Footplate on my chair, I have come up with many other uses for it that you wouldn’t be able to do with a normal footrest such as carrying items when shopping, holding my rifle when hunting and pushing things around." - Kevin Clement