TSA Pat-Down Leaves Bladder Cancer Patient Humiliated, Crying & Soaked in Urine

The Blaze ^ | November 21, 2010 | Meredith Jessup

[FTJM]

When I went to the airport today, I was put in the uncomfortable position of a so-called “naked” full-body scan. Today’s experience was very different from the last flight I made, nearly two weeks ago; at that time I only had to go through a magnetometer. Today there was no option — it was either the full-body scan, a humiliating pat-down or no flight. All passengers flying out of Washington, DC were subjected to the new procedures. So, like confused cattle, our uneasy line of air travelers was herded through the machine.

But my experience today was nothing compared to that of Thomas D. “Tom” Sawyer, a 61-year-old retired special education teacher from Lansing, Michigan. Sawyer was reportedly on his way to a wedding in Orlando when his medical condition caught the special attention of security.

As a survivor of bladder cancer, Sawyer wears his pants two sizes to large to accommodate medical equipment he must now wear. “I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the [urostomy] bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes,” he recounted to MSNBC.

On Nov. 7, Sawyer said he went through the security checkpoint at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure,” he said. Because of his medical condition, Sawyer says he asked to be screened in private. “One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn’t have any place to take me,” said Sawyer. “After I said again that I’d like privacy, they took me to an office.”

[piytar]

This is going to be the end of obama (who is on record supporting these procedures), the democrap party, and maybe the nation. The idiots in Washington really don’t understand how ANGRY these Gestapo tactics are making us, do they?

[TigersEye]

However, the website clearly states that security officers “will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace.”

If that's true the jihadis can now pack any of those things with HE and a detonator. No need to inconvenience and humiliate everyone else since all of those measures won't mean a thing.

[colorado tanker]

Enough is enough. These thugs have got to be stopped. Obammie gives American rights to foreign terrorists at Gitmo but says subjecting the American people to this degrading humiliation is just something we need to accept government does. Well, I'm done with my government raping me. 2010 didn't get the message across. We need to start working for 2012!

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

This is their goal though. People will quit flying and there won't be any money for roads and bridges. There'll be nice, shiny trains and mass transit buses to haul people around.

[Sun]

They are making people’s lives MISERABLE, and we are no safer. The terrorists must be laughing at us.

[Dapper 26]

Don’t be so sure of that. Remember, 1 in 5 of us is mentally ill. I don’t know how many mentally ill voters will associate the consequence of elections with public policy.

[LucyT]

As a survivor of bladder cancer, Sawyer wears his pants two sizes to large to accommodate medical equipment he must now wear... After he removed his belt for security, Sawyer’s over-sized pants fell down around his ankles. - “I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts… And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn’t need to know about that.”

But when one TSA agent used his hand to pat-down Sawyer, his urostomy bag became dislodged and the urine began to pour down the front of him. - “I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken..."

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, I’m praying that God takes all the bad leaders away.

[ncalburt]

these fools are now federal union goon protected.

[HiTech RedNeck]

I suppose it would be better for Sawyer just to visually show them his whatsis in a private office, but this has gotten way on the far side of ridiculous. There are some things that are just not meant to be groped by goons.

[KoRn]

I can’t imagine why someone would fly on a plane.

If I can’t drive there, I won’t go...

[Slyfox]

Now that actual terrorists are being tried in US courts and being given what is essentially a slap on the wrist, WE THE PEOPLE are being treated as though we are entering prison. Are cavity searches next on the agenda?

Oh, and Obama chuckles to himself that HE doesn't have to get patted down when he travels by air.

What a $#!+wad!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Would that make Willie Green a visionary ? ;-)

[Sarah Barracuda]

OMG that poor man. Reading stuff like this breaks my heart, that he had to go through that. So according to Obama and his cronies, someone like THIS is a threat and needs to be checked but a muslim, nah, can’t check them, they can check themselves. You know what, I hope that this brings down the Obama Administration for good.

[HiTech RedNeck]

How the heck is a Moose supposed to “pat HIMSELF down” ... no honest injun, there is no explosive in my pants, I just checked!

[freekitty]

This is one of the sickest acts I have ever heard.

[Sarah Barracuda]

Forget about pants, they probably carry the explosives in their shoes or undies. So this Administration has no issue “Trusting” that Muslims will be honest about what they are carrying (OMG is this seriously a joke) but a man stricken with bladder cancer, yeah somehow he poses a real threat. Unbelievable how far this gestapo administration will stoop

[Mr. Mojo]

It truly is. If the TSA thug accidently got urine on himself he’d have probably had the traveler arrested.

[tina07]

My elderly mother posed this type of question. My father had a colostomy bag for two yrs. before his death and she wondered what would happen to such a person and now I read this.

This.has.got.to.stop.

[mmercier]

I hate it when I am left crying, humiliated, and soaked in my own pi$$.

[HiTech RedNeck]

You’d think those much ballyhooed X-ray/T-ray machines would reveal what an apparatus like this is and spare the grope. But no, they scan AND grope.

[tina07]

Hopefully after the holidays those that fly will be more outraged than what is being said already and they’ll be forced to stop this insanity. What country is this any more?

[jeltz25]

The WH will just try and whitewash this whole thing

[Sun]

And I practive what I preach in my tag line, and pray for good leaders, once or more, a day.

[HiTech RedNeck]

“And so betwixt them both you see... they licked the platter clean.”

[3boysdad]

Never forget that Bush gave us the TSA. Just like Nixon gave us the EPA.

Hussein is just running wild with the gift that Bush gave him.

[Catsrus]

Funny isn’t it that we haven’t heard zero complaining about his inheritance of the TSA.

[NavyCanDo]

I just checked over on the DU. Where just a few days ago they were defending the TSA, saying “whatever it takes” to make our skys safe is good with them. Looks like most of the DU posters are starting to wake up on this one, and turning against the TSA, Napolitano, and Obama.

[South40]

I’ve been chosen for a pat down before it became law. I just assumed it was because I was the baddest looking mofo in the place. When you’re a 6’8”, black and ugly like me, it comes with the territory.

[3boysdad]

Exactly. You got it. And how come Sean Hanity never came to this conclusion while tooling around with W in his F150 on the Crawford Ranch to hawk his new book? The Bush's are every bit as slimey as Sorros's Hussein.

Thank God for the Tea Party.

[Miss Behave]

THIS MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL. HOW DARE THEY DO THIS TO THIS POOR MAN. DAMN THEM. DAMN OBAMA.

[cva66snipe]

Just guessing the agent wanted to see what that little tab on the flange was for. It releases the bag from the flange. They attach over a stoma {port} the same way colostomy bags do. Most of them are just below the waist line. It's bad enough the things leak sometimes on their own but to have someone unwilling to listen? Yes most persons with these devices were over-sized clothes to allow the bag or bags to expand. Sweating is not your friend either. Someone near and dear to me has both urostomy and colostomy bags.

[Smokin' Joe]

I can’t imagine why someone would fly on a plane. If I can’t drive there, I won’t go...

I have flown once since 9/11, and it was already ridiculous then. Now, no, I won't fly.

What we really need is a period when all of America just stays on the ground in protest--until the Airlines raise hell with the Government over this crap.

We can all howl all we want, but until someone bleeds (even at the wallet), it won't make much difference unless the Obamedia break ranks and raise hell, too.

[airborne]

Don't you all feel safer now?

(sarcasm and disgust)

[dixiechick2000]

Dogs are more reliable, less expensive, and much nicer if you’re clean.

None of what the dogs do is humiliating or intimidating...which is what I believe these procedures are designed to do.

I hope Chertoff has his day of reckoning very soon...

[Gene Eric]

>> I have flown once since 9/11,

Traveled plenty of times since then overseas.

What’s happening today is #ing wild-ass bizarre!

Let’s not bludgeon our brothers and sisters at the gate. Instead, we need to challenge the ‘lawmakers’ in DC that are responsible for the violations of our Liberties!

[caveat emptor]

Janet Napolitano Unveils New TSA PR Campaign.

[Smokin' Joe]

Airlines make political contributions. They have people who lobby in DC. If they flew empty or not at all for a week or two, the heat would go up in DC--maybe fast enough to end this crap.

Yes, we can protest, but if we don't show our revulsion for this by not submitting it won't make any difference.

Otherwise, there will be a brief two or three week flurry of 'horror' articles and letters to the editor and Congress, and then it will die out and the new 'norm' will be passively accepted, just as the confiscation of embroidery scissors and nail clippers was.

[Gene Eric]

>> Yes, we can protest, but if we don’t show our revulsion for this by not submitting it won’t make any difference.

Quite honestly, I’m getting ‘sick and tired’ of bashing our neighbors instead of those that are responsible for this shit we’re sufferin’.

[Politicalmom]

Apparently, they’ve already “taken care of” that thread already. I get an error.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Rush: Obama groping flyers to punish them for voting GOP - ‘This is all about control...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2629003/posts

[Smokin' Joe]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'bashing our neighbors'.

If we fail to bring significant pressure to bear on DC over this, nothing will change.

Congress has been bombarded with letters, polls, etc. showing two thirds of America was against something and passed it without even reading it.

They have shown they can ignore that, and it has cost some of them their jobs, but the new crew won't be able to do anything about this egregious crap until they are sworn in, next year.

By then, the 'new' will wear off the news stories and the networks will move on to something else while the sheep continue to get groped. For most non-flying Americans, it will become a non-issue asother things take precedence in their day-to-day lives.

Americans are a forgiving and adaptable people and the administration is counting on the perishability of our outrage in this matter, much as removing shoes and giving up penknives and embroidery scissors.

Some planes sitting idle, something the whole world would notice, something the airlines would raise unholy hell about, would be more effective than just us sitting at keyboards and bitching, writing letters and making calls to a lame duck Congress or a hostile administration, especially if anything is going to be done about this before Christmas travel begins.

[Nickname]

In reading story after story about American citizens being violated, harassed and humiliated by their government, I’m reminded of the stories of East Germany and the USSR that we used to hear about and be horrified by.

It could never happen here? It has. They just aren’t shooting at us yet.

[Myrddin]

If I can’t drive there, I won’t go...

So you haven't been to Hawaii?

BTW, I traveled to Hawaii at age 4 without a plane. A Navy ship was used to move dependents to Hawaii from a ship departing from San Francisco. The trip to San Francisco was a mix of train from San Diego to San Francisco, then bus to the pier for departure. My 5th birthday occurred on the ship. The return trip to San Diego was on a Boeing 707 when I was 6. The terminal in San Diego was still on the east side of the field then.

I've adopted the same policy. I'm driving. Piss on the TSA.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That’s what irks me. At airports I look out over the vast sea of sheep winding their way through the maze on the way to the machines and I think of the millions of wasted manhours and now the indigities and loss of personal freedoms. Inevitably, in the next moment, I always think of just one thing...the islamderthals responsible for all of this and how we lack the will to go after them.

Instead, they will be allowed to “self-check” themselves at airport security because our squeamish attitudes. Worse, the Supreme Court has handed enemy combatants over to our courts and accorded them privileges of citizenship with the well-known result last week.

Our country is rapidly coming apart because those we elect have no balls anymore.

[jonrick46]

Everyone needs to opt for the “pat down” instead of the X-ray scan. Pat downs take a lot more time than the scans. This would slow the processing of passengers to a crawl. It would create such a bottleneck in the airport that flights would be delayed and thrown off schedule. This would create such havoc that the airlines would be screaming bloody murder to get this stuff stopped.