SEATTLE (AP) — A Michigan woman dying of leukemia hopes her embarrassing experience at a Seattle airport changes the way the Transportation Security Administration treats travelers with medical conditions.
Michelle Dunaj, 34, was making what she expects will be the last trip of her life on Oct. 2 as she departed for Hawaii.
The Roseville, Mich., woman thought she had prepared by calling the airline ahead of time, asking for a wheelchair, carrying documentation for her feeding tubes and making sure she had prescriptions for all her medications, including five bags of saline solution. But Dunaj said she received a full pat-down in the security line at Sea-Tac Airport and had to lift her shirt and pull back bandages so agents could get a good look. She said everyone else in line got a look, too.
"My issue is: It was in front of everyone, and everyone was looking at me like I was a criminal or like I was doing something wrong," Dunaj told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It shouldn't have been in front of everyone."
Dunaj said a female agent performed the pat-down and asked her to lift up her shirt after feeling the tubes going into Dunaj's chest and abdomen. Dunaj said her suggestion for a more private pat-down was dismissed.
"I asked them if they thought that was an appropriate location, and they told me that everything was fine," she said.
She said another agent punctured one of the saline bags she was carrying, ruining it.
"I didn't want to start getting upset and swearing and causing more of a scene or issue," Dunaj said. "But it definitely wasn't handled properly."
that we will have to put up with as long as idiots have some authority.