An apparently confused grandmother put a one-month-old baby in a plastic bin that started to go through the X-ray machine at the Los Angeles International Airport until screeners saw the child’s outline and pulled the bin away.
The Los Angeles Times called the event “bizarre but not unprecedented.”
The baby was examined at a local hospital where it was determined there was no damage from the X-ray machine.
The unidentified 56-year-old woman who sent the baby through the machine apparently did not understand English, which may have contributed to the mix-up.
The paper adds that “the rare incident drew attention to whether officials are staffing often-busy security checkpoints enough to prevent such an accident.”
Transportation Security Administration spokesman Nico Melendez said that “the agency doesn’t have enough workers to constantly stand at tables in front of the screeners to coach passengers on what should or should not be sent through X-ray machines.”
Report by David Wilkening
