Falling Down

Bernice Bogart, 83, has had a hip replacement seven years ago and isn't supposed to stand without her walker. Her daughter, Sally Moon, says she was assured that Frontier Airlines and Transportation Security Administration staff would not require her mother to leave her wheelchair while going through security at Denver International Airport. But while Moon was placing her bags on the x-ray screener, TSA officials chose her mother, who suffers from dementia, for additional screening and got her out of the wheelchair. When Moon reached out to keep her mother from falling, a TSA official shouted at her not to touch the old woman. And when Moon pointed out her mother is under doctor's orders not to stand, she says the screener threatened not to allow them on the plane. The screener had Bogart raise her arms, but she could only raise them so far because of the effects of breast cancer surgery, so the screener raised them herself. When Moon asked for the screener's name, TSA officials refused to provide it.