By arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
Tuesday, august 29, 2006
Hetwig Strohmeier finished her 10-week visit with her son and other family members in Stoney Creek Ontario by flying back to her native Germany from Toronto's Pearson International airport last Friday. The 87-year-old great grandmother has a heart condition that necessitates her taking medication every four hours. Her life-sustaining medication was confiscated by airport screeners and she ended up going without her pills for 12 hours. Information reveals that although she was in "bad shape" when she finally arrived home, there does not appear to be any long lasting effects of Strohmeier having been deprived of her necessary drugs.
The president of a transportation consumer group is quoted as saying that what happened to Hetwig Strohmeier was the result of "hastily implemented" restrictions on what passengers are allowed to bring with them on the cabin of aircraft. These restrictions were implemented in the wake of arrests in the U.K. and Pakistan of several people on terrorism charges. The allegations are that they plotted to blow up planes by bringing items onto planes in carry on luggage, and then mixing them to create explosives.
Strohmeier's son, Helmut, is demanding to know why it happened. Why it happened is actually quite simple -- the prime directive in these matters is to be politically correct; political correctness is now the "new normal". The guiding principle is that it is far better that 10 little old white ladies like Ms. Strohmeier die in mid flight because they are deprived of their life saving medication, than for one young Muslim male to be "offended" while being screened boarding an aircraft. Hetwig Strohmeier was at a disadvantage while being screened in that she spoke only German. Had she been younger, in better health and fluent in one of Canada's official languages, she might have been able to persuade the screeners to allow her to take her life saving medication with her. But she shouldn't have had to -- the medication was in a proper container with her name on it. at a minimum, the airline should have cared enough to allow the meds to be kept and dispensed by a flight attendant.
The notion that passenger safety on planes is paramount is a crock. It is the big lie. Passenger safety comes second to the principle of refusing to offend those who fit the profile of someone who may want to blow up a plane. People must be treated equally, even though the chance that an 87-year-old German woman would try to blow up a plane varies from extremely remote to nil.
a few radical Muslims seek to blow up planes and kill innocent people and now all passengers have to suffer. What happened to Hetwig Strohmeier goes far beyond the mere inconvenience that all passengers now have to endure -- it could very well have cost her her life. Many people are fond of using the expression that the "terrorists would have won" if such and such happens. Well, the terrorists have won when people like Hetwig Strohmeier are forced to go without their necessary medicine on flights.
airlines should pay more attention to passenger safety and less to the possibility of hurting someone's feelings when they are being screened. Those who are not terrorists but fit the profile of one should understand the need to be racially profiled. and if they don't, the hell with them. What happened to Ms. Strohmeier, never mind what could have happened to her, should not be allowed to happen so the screeners can feel that they have been "fair" and treated all the passengers equally. We need racial profiling to be done at airports.
Strohmeier has said that she hopes to return to Canada in spite of her ordeal on the plane. Let's hope she makes it. and let's hope the airlines smarten up.
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