I broke my leg four months ago and just now flew for the first time since surgery and wanted to share my opt-out experiences. I am wearing a removable cam boot on the bad leg and can walk with slight weight-bearing on the bad leg if I use a walker.
So, first up SEA. I decided to use a wheel chair to get through security. But the TSO spotted my collapsible walker being put through xray and told me to go through the BSX out of the chair. I told him that I couldn't do it--I can't stand more than a second or so, since I have to put almost all my weight on my good leg, and having to raise my arms would screw up my balance. Besides, I can't take off the boot if there is any chance that I would put my bad foot down.
Impasse. He wouldn't wave me through in the chair, since there was "evidence" I can walk. (Though, surely you can't take a walker into the BSX??) I asked for a supervisor, and insisted that I needed to stay in the chair. Supervisor comes, and the TSO tells them that I "claim I can't walk, although she's putting a walker through xray." I tell my story again to the supervisor, who tells the line TSO to have the chair pushed through and then I'll be patted down.
Patdown was pretty standard, including a peek into my pants, until the woman got to my bad leg. I have two pretty angry looking incisions down both sides of my ankle and a lot of hardward (plates, pins, screws) just under the skin at my ankle. As she started pressing hard on the area, I involuntarily yelped and she never apologized but just said, "Are you refusing to continue with security?" I was shocked at her insensitivity and said something I shouldn't have; something like "It's obviously extremely painful when you press hard against my incisions, is causing pain the part of your job you like most?" I know, childish on my part, but her pressing really did hurt and then for her to come on like I was being obstreperous really upset me. She called for the supervisor--same guy who had just left the scene--and I told him that pressing on my surgical incisions with the screws underneath was very painful and I couldn't help reacting. He was pretty reasonable, asked if I wanted a comment card (I did, lot of good it will do) and asked if I needed any additional help in collecting my boot and stuff. (I didn't because the wheelchair helper had already gotten my bag and walker off the belt for me.)
Given that experience, I really dreaded coming back. But the experience at SFO was much better. No objection to my being wheeled through, no skeptical "are you sure you can't walk" stuff, professional patdown without the python-grip over my incisions.