You can guess the rest of the story. Full story at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...022802248.html

<sarcasm on:>
Now we'll have the TSA once again mandating manufacturer labels to avoid unfortunate accidents and ensure public safety.
<sarcasm off>

You beat me to it - I read the Post story at lunch today, and was surprised that no one else had posted something yet.

So she's going to be fine, as long as you consider being blind to be "fine?" It sure doesn't sound like she'll be fine. Do corneas grow back?

The outer layer of the cornea, called the epithelium, will grow back.

Unfortunately, she'll now have to take her corneas out and put them in a resealable one quart plastic bag.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/hspr-H102; Blazer/4.0) 16;320x320)

I'd like to know where she found generic 3oz bottles that TSA Centurions have been allowing her to carry on.

Thank God the human eye is amazingly resilient.

Wow, while I like Diane Rehm and wish her all the best and a speedy recovery, this is just another reminder to slow down and smell the roses. I've probably been traveling too much / too fast myself and have occasionally found myself one step away from fubaring something. Like I really should schedule some time at home to get my cracked tooth looked at before it gets infected or something.

Without detracting from the scary horror of her injuries, and my wishes for a speedy and full recovery, this sounds like the perfect legal case to get the issue of TSA accountability solved once and for all.

To date, there has been little or no evidence of an event where TSA agents failing to follow procedures resulted in real injuries and loss for a flying customer.

Unfortunately, now we have one - a citizen who suffered both a disabling injury as well as financial loss from her inability to work, not because of the TSA rules inasmuch as her loss was caused by TSA employees not following the established rules which do not bar unmarked bottles.

If she has the stomach for it, I would like to see her join with like minded legal counsel to file a lawsuit against the government, first asking for the TSA's protection against liability be waived in this case (failure to follow established procedures is willful negligence), and permitting the suit to move forward against both the government and the individual employees she interacted with.

I think a valid case can be made to strip individual government workers of their insulation from liability claims while on the job, when their failure to follow procedures can be shown to be negligent and results in damage to a citizen. A successful change to the law from this case would certainly put a chill on the TSA workforce as well as other agents of the government who think their insulation from liability gives them carte blanche to abuse the citizens they report to.

More importantly, a good case might solve - for once and all - whether larger quantities of contact solution are permitted.

With all due respect to your opinions, I fail to see how the TSA is responsible for this? In fact to sue the government/TSA in this case would be the epitome of frivoluousness. Now, if the TSA had, say, removed the bottles, opened them up, mixed up the contents, then yeah, maybe. But in this case? Hardly.

There's been no talk of a lawsuit of which I am aware. I would think it would be tough to show government negligence. You always have the option to check your luggage (not saying I agree with this either/or scenario, but it would certainly be a card a defendant would play) and, I don't know why she didn't label her containers.

She did, but they got smudged.

I agree. The containers were labelled, but then the labels were smudged. So now there is a risk in guessing which container has the contact lens solution. At this point, Rehm elected to take the risk, and suffered the consequence of her own decision.

Some people, (not me, of course) might call this an example of Darwin's laws at work. I would disagree with that.

Agree. The TSA is not my favorite organization (no s**t, Wally), but they played no active part in this.

Doesn't perfume smell BTW ?

I don't agree. Let me play devil's advocate for a sec:

Wouldn't the danger here be that suing the gov't for failure to follow their established procedures, stupid (and possibly unlawful; that hasn't been tested yet) as they are, leave the door open for even greater bureaucratic oversight/expenditures -- the very outcome we're trying to overturn in the first place? This doesn't strike me as a sensible strategy.

OMNI to bocastephen, YGM.