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Bad day at the airport
Whenever I fly, I attempt to go through the necessary security measures as expediently as possible, except the time I accidentally left some spare change in a pocket. They forgave me.
Every once in a while, you still hear stories involving TSA procedures that make you wonder, such as what happened to a friend at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Several weeks before her flight, she was walking her dog in Mingo Creek County Park when she fell, suffering a compound fracture of her ankle. She'd made progress in her rehabilitation by the time she was ready to leave for Florida but still couldn't walk without assistance.
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Sorry, she was told. If she couldn't walk on her own accord, she'd have to be subjected to an alternative security measure: "I have to touch you everywhere you have clothes," said a clearly uncomfortable female TSA staff member.
The woman proceeded to do just that.
"She was groping me in front of everyone who was coming through security," my friend reports. "It was extremely humiliating. They didn't even have the courtesy to take me anywhere private."
Certainly, the TSA is in the position of having to take the utmost precautions with regard to everyone. But shouldn't the agency be more accommodating to people who have disabilities, even temporary ones?
It might depend where you are.
As my friend prepared to return home, she admits, "I was terrified of going through again." But at Tampa International Airport, she didn't need to worry.
"They clearly are more prepared for disabled people. The minute I came in, they handed me a wooden cane."
And so she was able to walk where she needed to go, without enduring another round of what she encountered at Pittsburgh International.
"I guess I could have crawled through," she muses.
Online editor Harry Funk can be reached at hfunk@observer-reporter.com.
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