Lena Reppert was asked to remove her adult diaper by TSA at a Florida airport.
/ Courtesy The Grand Rapids Press
FLORIDA -- Social Media is buzzing after TSA officials asked a 95-year-old woman with leukemia to take off her adult diaper at an airport last weekend.
The Grand Rapids Press reports Lena Reppert, a Michigan native, was traveling with her daughter, Jean Weber, to the Hastings Michigan area, where they were planning on spending her final days as she neared the end of her battle with cancer.
However, Weber was horrified when the Transportation Security Administration at Northwest Florida Regional Airport told her dying, frail mother that she had to remove her adult diaper for a security check. Weber tells CNN security officials “felt something suspicious on her leg… so they took her into a closed room…” The TSA official told Weber that they, “could not complete the security check without the Depends off.” The Grand Rapids Press reports the searching took 45 minutes.
TSA has released the following statement to CNN regarding the incident: “While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner. We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.”
The TSA changed their procedures on checking children after an online video went viral of a TSA working patting down a six-year-old girl, according to MSNBC.
Twitter and Facebook have lit up with comments after this incident as well. Many feel that the TSA went too far in making this woman remove her adult diaper. What do you think? Was the TSA just doing their job, or was this going too far? Should the TSA change their procudures for elderly, like they did with children?
