I was away from home recently so missed all the furore about the screening fiasco with the 3 year old disabled child. I am a fairly seasoned traveller and know to never argue with anyone in authority at the airport if I want to have any chance to make my flight.

I thought I might relate one of our own experiences. Going through TSA screening with a wheelchair is a circus at the best of times. In June 2012 we took our 26 year old daughter with cerebral palsy to Maui through LAX. She is alert and can both understand what is being said and respond to questions verbally and clearly. However she cannot stand. It also means that she cannot use a bathroom without an attendant to lift her/ undress her etc.Therefore, although fully continent, it means that for long flights she needs to wear an adult diaper ( just in case), even though she doesn't need one otherwise and finds having to wear one humiliating . ( Have you tried getting 2 people into an aircraft washroom. I have and it's not even vaguely accessible, despite the disabled sticker suggesting otherwise).

At LAX we had a tight connection. With a wheelchair and at LAX in particular I define anything less than 4 hours as "tight" . We were arriving from YYZ but our inbound flight was 2 hours late. We were met by an airline agent who wanted to " assist us" through the terminal to meet our next flight. Normally after a flight the first thing we do is head to the washroom but that can be a 15 - 20 minute process and the agent said there was no way he would wait for that. I asked my daughter and she said she could hang on until after security, so off we went.

Little were we prepared for the pantomime that then ensued. There was construction being done so the screening area access/ lines were really messed up. After waiting 5 - 10 minutes we were ushered to bypass the metal detectors, where we were told that my daughter would need a pat down. No problem there please go ahead. I was told that they wouldn't go ahead without my presence, which again I understand as she is a young woman after all.

That couldn't happen until I had been screened first. In order to do this I was directed to the back of the regular screening line, where I took another 10 -15 minutes to get through ( at a conservative estimate). By this time my daughter was definitely needing to go pee. We asked. No I'm sorry you can't until we have finished.

Next they start the pat down routine and wheelchair swab. When they asked her to stand up I informed them again that she couldn't do so and offered to do a pariial lift ( she weighs over 100 lbs ) lifting her bum from the chair so that they can search underneath. This took a long time because she was wearing a diaper and they were having problems dealing with this. I can tell you that holding her up for what seemed like forever was not easy on my back at all but this we do anyway.

I am now ready to take her to the bathroom which she so desperately needs only to find that there is another stage/ delay necessary. Apparently, even though I was already screened, because I had then touched somebody who hadn't yet been screened ( my daughter in order to help them) I had to be screened again, this time including a full pat down. No problem but can I take my daughter to the bathroom first because by now she is definitely squirming. Apparently not. I then undergo the full patdown including the backs of hands down the front of my pants etc. etc.

Finally we get the all clear and it is over 1 hour after we disembarked from our first flight and my daughter hadn't been able to hang on. She was embarrassed and upset.

The final straw. There were no unisex/ disabled bathrooms in LAX so I had to either take her into the mens room and wait by the urinals for the accessible stall to become vacant or head into the ladies and deal with those who call security because a man is in the ladies ( and yes it does happen all too predictably). Fortunately on askin at the UA RC Lounge we were taken to an empty UA First Class Lounge where I could take her to the men's room with no problem. And yes we made our connection but only just.

My point about raising this is that the TSA really needs to figure out how they are going to deal with this because the process seems so uneccessarily cumbersome and has little thought to human dignity. I also don't think it makes flying that much safer. My daughter's passport indicates clearly that she is unable to sign her name, so it should have been obvious that this wasn't a fake disability to get by security with a wheelchair full of explosives.

It took 2 screeners and 1 supervisor out of regular circulation and not looking for real bad guys. The need for my second screening at the same checkppoint seemed to be overkill. I was in their sight while lifting her bum. How I was supposed to secrete the hidden weapon from the chair to my person I don't know. If I was going to have to go through a full screen after why could I not have just done this once, after they had patted down my daughter and I had had a chance to sneak something onto my person? If they are sending me back for screening after helping my daughter why do I have to go to the back of the line and queue for 10 minutes or more a second time? Haven't I served my time in line already that day? Honest folks I'm not queue jumping!

Anyway, after 26 years of frequent flying my daughter has indicated that as much as she loves going to new places (and warm places in winter)she has had enough and no longer wishes to travel with us. Some of that is because it is increasingly hard for both her and myself but also because the security screening process has become so frustrating. It would probably have happened anyway, as she is after all a young adult now and it is natural to spend less time with your parents. But the tipping point was without a doubt her recent experiences at airport security. ( when a teen she had been upset when security had confiscated her plastic Crayola crinkle cut scissors post 9/11 but she got over that one)