Heading into the weekend, we were all alarmed to read the report of a cancer survivor forced to show her prosthetic breast at an airport security checkpoint.

Then on Saturday morning, an msnbc.com editor asked me to follow up on an email about an incident involving Lansing, Michigan resident Thomas D. Sawyer. (“Yes, my mother named me ‘Tom Sawyer’, Mr. Sawyer told me when started chatting on the phone.)

Here’s the story:

61 year-old Sawyer is a retired special education teacher and a one-time National Teacher of the Year. He ended up humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach.

“I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the 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.”

On November 7^th, Sawyer went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. “Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat down procedure.”

Due his medical condition, Sawyer 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.”

Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He’d taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with the TSOs, his pants fell down around his ankles. “I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts,” said Sawyer, “And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition they said they didn’t need to know about that.”

Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, the TSOs did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer says it wasn’t until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.

“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. 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 on was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”

The TSO finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”
Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer didn’t even ask for the TSOs names. “You’re afraid they won’t let you fly if you say something and they think you’re being rude. I just wanted to get out of that room as fast I could,” said Sawyer, who then had to walk through the airport, get on his plane and wait until after takeoff to clean up.

Sawyer completed his trip and had no problems with the security procedures at the Orlando International Airport on his return trip. He says he hasn’t filed a formal complaint yet with the TSA. When he does, says TSA spokesperson Dwayne Baird, “We will review the matter and take appropriate action if necessary.” In the meantime, Baird encourages anyone with a medical condition to read the TSA’s website section on Assistive Devised and Mobility Aids.

Sawyer has written to his senators, state representatives and the president of the United States.  He’s also shared details of the incident on-line with members of the non-profit Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, many of whom have offered support and shared their travel experiences.

Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network executive director Claire Saxton said that there are hundreds of thousands of people living with ostomies in the United States. “TSA agents need to be trained to listen when someone tells them they have a health issue and trained in knowing what an ostomy is. No one living with an ostomy should be afraid of flying because they’re afraid of being humiliated at the checkpoint.”

Eric Lipp, executive director of Open Doors Association, which works with businesses and the disability community, called what happened to Sawyer “unfortunate.”

“But enhanced pat-downs are not a new issue for people with disabilities who travel,” Lipp said. “They’ve always had trouble getting through the security checkpoint.”

Still, Lipp said the TSA knows there’s a problem. “This came up during a recent meeting of the agency’s disability advisory board and I expect to see a procedure coming in place shortly that will directly address the pat-down procedures for people with disabilities.”

See this story – TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine – and the more than 1000 comments from readers on msnbc.com.

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