FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — The remnants of Hurricane Ian continue to pose a danger to people heading to the beach. 

While much of the large debris has been collected, it’s the smaller and sometimes even unseen hazards that are ending with trips to the hospital. 

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On Sunday, a Fort Myers man spending the day at the beach with his family found one of those dangers with his foot. Derrick Bennett stepped on something left behind by Ian, causing a three-inch gash in his right foot. 

“I mean…right there. That’s your sign,” Bennett said while holding a piece of glass. “That’s all you need to see.” 

It shines just like the setting sun glistening on the Gulf of Mexico. Glass, and a lot of it, still littering the sand on Fort Myers Beach. 

“I found it right over there in the sand,” said Derrick’s daughter, Sarah.

In fact, Sarah, 8, found three pieces in a matter of minutes while ABC7 was interviewing her father. 

“Yeah. And another one. Just a prime example of why you always need to be wearing protection out here right now,” Bennett said. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t heeding his own advice on Sunday. Bennett and his family ran right into the water towards the south end of Fort Myers Beach. 

“Got our umbrella all set up, sunscreen on,” he said.” 

However, they forgot their shoes. 

“I knew then, I thought about it. I was like, ‘Uhh, we really need to be putting our shoes on’.”

Just a few minutes later in chest-deep water, Bennett felt a sharp pain in his right foot. He stepped on something that shouldn’t be there: a piece of Hurricane Ian debris. 

“I was about chest deep and I stepped back and I felt a rock, what I hope is a rock,” Bennett said. “I was trying to move away from it and a wave caught me and it just kind of pushed me forward. Just pushed that right foot straight down onto whatever it was. I just felt it scrape. And I knew then, ‘Ah, I’m going to the hospital’.”

He made his way to shallow water where he saw the blood coming from his foot.

Bennett’s now nursing a three-inch gash on his foot, but that’s not even the worst of it. 

At the emergency room, he got a round of shots, including tetanus. 

“And some form of antibiotic shot right in the behind, (00) which I don’t recommend at all,” he said.

On Fort Myers Beach, bare feet are everywhere. 

Gage: “Are you worried about stepping on something?”

Juan Mercado: “Not really. I was in the water, had no problem.”

Sadie Clarke and her two-year-old son, Blake, are also both barefoot in the water. 

“If I had to get him stitches on his feet because of the hurricane debris? I would feel really s*****,” she said. 

Gage: “The next time you head to the water, are you going to wear shoes?”

Sadie: “Probably. I hate feet anyways, so it’s kind of like a thing where I’d like to wear water shoes, but I don’t own any.”

Whether you hate feet or would hate for your feet to end up like this, the best option is to lace up — or at least slide into some sort of shoes. 

“We could always wear water shoes in the water, just for precaution,” Alexa Mercado said.