85 Yr Old Lady
Stripped by TSA
For Refusing Naked Body Scan?
OK - this is a wierd story - Because a lady does not want to go through a naked-body-scanner TSA wants her to strip down. What is with these people? Is there something going on here we don't understand?
Anyway, here is the story - READ...
85-year-old New York grandmother - Stripped-Searched by TSA - Injured and bleeding - but still stripped searched
Mrs. Lenore Zimmerman says she was rushed off to a private room and ordered to take off her pants and other garments, because she asked not to go through the naked-body-scanner now a part of many airports "Search Programs".
She asked for the optional pat-down-search instead of the body scanner due to fears it would interrupt or interfere with her defibrillator.
“I walk with a walker —Do I really look like a terrorist?” she told reporters “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”
“I was outraged,” says Mrs. Zimmerman. She also said, that as she tired to lift her walker from her lap, "the metal bars hit my leg" and she said that blood began to flow from the gash, “My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig."
Mrs. Zimmerman's son Bruce, left her off at JFK (Kennedy) Airport for her 1 PM flight to Forth Lauderday, Florida on Jet Blue airlines. She left the ticket counter, got in a wheelchair with her walker in her lap and proceeded to TSA security screen at 12:20 PM.
She's been traveling to Florida for at least a decade and has never had a problem being patted down until now, she said. "I worry about my heart, so I don't want to go through those things," she said referring to the naked body scanners being used in many airports, especially international airports leaving the USA. (strangely enough - the naked body scanners are used here in US when people LEAVE for other countries...??)
As a result, she said she was taken into the private screening room by one agent and made to strip.
Although TSA officials claim it was only 11 minutes in the private room, she missed her flight and had to wait an extra two-and-half hours, while injured and shivering all alone in the airport, she said.
TSA (Transportation Security Administration) officials say they have no evidence of strip search being conducted.
"While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case," the statement read.
The TSA is denying everything right away. Jonathan Allen the spokesperson for TSA, said "Proper procedures were followed" claiming they have a video to show it.
He said, "Private screening was requested by passenger" and he said it took them, "approximately 11 minutes". He continued saying, "TSA screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy" and he said that "occurred in this instance".
However, the private screening was not recorded. And now it becomes the word of United Sates Security TSA officers against an 85 year old lady.
Mrs. Zimmerman, who spends half the year in Long Beach, N.Y., said she banged her shin during the process and it bled "like a pig," partly because she is on blood-thinning medication. She said an emergency medical technician patched her up, but she was told to see a doctor when she arrived in Florida to make sure the wound didn't get infected. There are no records indicating medical attention was called on her behalf.
"I don't know what triggered this. I don't know why they singled me out," she said.
Her son Bruce Zimmerman said he'd like to see someone fired, and screeners re-trained after his mother's ordeal.
"My mother is a little old woman. She's not disruptive or uncooperative," he said Saturday. "I don't understand how this happened."
He said she's had an increasingly difficult time traveling, especially in the last few years..
So, what is going on here?
Why does everyone have to get naked for TSA people to see them - before they can fly? (just asking..)
Comments Anyone?
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