The empty toe phenomenon: a type of closed degloving.

A 46-year-old man sustained a crush injury, including several phalangeal fractures and vascular disruption, when his left foot was run over by a forklift truck. Although the skin was not broken, the middle and distal phalanges of his second toe were displaced, appearing absent on radiography. This was a closed degloving injury, a rare form of trauma involving tissue separation without skin disruption. Closed degloving injuries, which can occur in conjunction with bone displacement in the toes, can produce a striking radiographic appearance, referred to in this report as the "empty toe."