TSA forces wheelchair-bound, 95-year-old woman dying of cancer to remove adult diaper
Last weekend, Lena Reppert, a wheelchair-bound, 95-year old woman suffering from a terminal case of leukemia arrived at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport to board a flight to Michigan where she planned to spend time with her family before she passes away. When she arrived at the TSA checkpoint in the airport, TSA agents brought her to a glass partition where they subjected her to one of their infamous pat-down searches. After completing the pat-down, the TSA agents still weren’t convinced that the elderly woman wasn’t a terrorist, so they brought her to a private room to subject her to a more invasive search. During the search, the TSA agents ordered her to remove an adult diaper she was wearing, claiming that it was impeding their ability to search her. The search took approximately 45 minutes.
The woman’s daughter, Jean Weber, filed a complaint with the TSA about the incident and was allegedly told that the TSA agents followed the proper procedures for conducting a search.
According to Sari Koshetz, a TSA spokeswoman, “TSA cannot exempt any group from screening because we know from intelligence that there are terrorists out there that would then exploit that vulnerability.”
Do you feel safer now?
Sources
- “Dying Woman Undergoes Additional TSA Security Screening, Says Family,” FoxNews.com, June 26, 2011
- Lauren Sage Reinlie, “Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search,” NWFDailyNews.com, June 25, 2011.
