Family Upset After TSA Pats Down Disabled 7-Year-Old

The family of a New York girl – who only recently took her first steps at the age of seven because of cerebral palsy – is blaming the TSA for ruining the start of their vacation by making them miss their flight.

FOX News Radio’s Chris Hoenig has the story from New York City:

Dina Frank needs special braces to help her walk, braces that kept her from going through standard screening at New York’s JFK Airport on Monday.  Her dad, Joshua, says the TSA agreed to swab the braces instead of doing a patdown.

(Frank) “I think they’re scary for a 7-year-old girl, to throw on the blue surgical gloves and really come at her.”

But agents tracked the family down on line to board their plane, forcing the girl back for a thorough patdown – which the TSA says should have been done in the first place.  The issue, Frank says, isn’t the patdown.

(Frank) “But then the policy needs to be enforced, and be enforced with a little compassion.”

Frank intends to take the matter up with a member of Congress’s Homeland Security Committee.

Chris Hoenig, FOX News Radio.