(Newser)
–
The latest TSA horror story: A 95-year-old, wheelchair-bound, 105-pound woman—who has end-stage leukemia, to boot—was forced to remove her adult diaper during a pat-down at a Florida airport last weekend. Wheelchairs are always swabbed for explosives and their passengers patted down, a TSA spokesperson says. Jean Weber’s mother was originally taken into a glass-partitioned area to be patted down, but was then moved to another room for more privacy and a more extensive search, Weber tells the Northwest Florida Daily News.
Security personnel eventually told Weber, who was sitting outside the private room, to remove her mother’s soiled Depends diaper because it was impeding the search. Weber did so, but did not have another clean diaper with which to replace it. The whole ordeal took 45 minutes, and Weber has since filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security. A TSA spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the specific incident, but said procedures are the same for everyone; a Homeland Security rep also told Weber the agents followed procedure.
