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.”

[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.