A two year old boy received injuries from his joy ride on a baggage conveyor belt behind the Spirit Airlines ticket counter in Atlanta. His mother was printing boarding passes from a kiosk Monday afternoon when she put her son down “for a moment.” However it was “too late.”
VIDEO: Child disappears on airport baggage belt, passes through TSA X-Ray machine, before ending up in baggage inspection station. pic.twitter.com/fbR938r6F4
— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) July 25, 2019
The mother saw it happening. The boy went behind an unstaffed counter and got on the baggage belt. He was at the end of the belt when she noticed, and his mother says “I wanted to jump in and try to go get him, but they didn’t allow me. I was just freaking out.”
The boy was gone, rode for five minutes, and was eventually found in a TSA bag room. The toddler “ended up with cuts to his arm and a fractured hand.”
According to the airport,
Officers with Atlanta Police and Atlanta Fire and Rescue responded to an incident at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Monday afternoon involving a small child who accessed the automated baggage screening system via the Spirit Airlines ticket counter..The child was transported to a local hospital for observation and treatment. The Transportation Security Administration and other partners are also assisting with the investigation into the incident.
Unlike the lead singer for Puddle of Mud the boy wasn’t arrested. No word whether the boy was just trying to save his mom Spirit Airlines carry on fees.
Unfortunately sad. I guess the toddler might have been better off leashed to his mom.
Now I understand why some parents choose to have their toddlers on a backpack leash at the airport.
1. The boy sustained injuries & his mother had to endure 5 minutes of torture. I find the author’s concluding remarks incredibly insensitive & out of touch to how dangerous & frightening this experience was.
2. I find it curious that the child had to ride for 5 minutes & end up in a baggage room. I would think most conveyer belts have an emergency stop button.
I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of a child leash. Definitely a good tool
@Blaire the kid sustained minor injuries. Your feelings are valid, but I believe most people would agree that light humor is ok after the fact. There is an emergency stop, but if the area was unattended, who would have pushed the button?
No doubt his parents will sue the airport (and likely win millions) for their own neglect in parenting.
@taha: I’m not sure I would call a fractured hand a minor injury. And yes I can understand why at first introduction light humor may be found- I myself thought so as well- until I thought about my own child being swept away from me with nothing I could do to stop it & then how that mom had to endure 5 agonizing minutes of not knowing where he was & what was happening to him. I believe any mother would understand that this is actually not a humorous story.
Also, the belt wasn’t unattended as reported in the article that the staff wouldn’t let the mother intervene.
This is why we should allow forced sterilization! Stupid parents.
Call CPS!
I’m a little sad that this happened at a Spirit Airlines ticket counter because all this story does is confirm my biases about the kind of people that travel on Spirit…
(Yes I have two children, 2 and 4, who have both flown 10+ times and I am capable of keeping them out of trouble)
Does anyone recall Richard Scarry’s children’s books such as What Do People Do All Day? or Great Big Air Book? Both of those books featured Huckle Cat, the son of Grocer Cat and his wife, being ticketed and put on a luggage belt after they checked in for a flight. Needless to say, Huckle’s mother freaked out when she saw Huckle riding the luggage belt away from the check-in area. Those books came out in the late 1960s/early 1970s. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same . . .
@Steve S DO NOT Blame Spirt Airlines, they are NOT in the baby sitting business. Parents need to watch their kids. ONE SECOND that is all it takes. For a kid to drown in a pool, to get on a luggage belt, to fall 11 stories on a cruise ship. The FIRST thing is to blame the company because the parent is TOO BUSY NOT WATCHING their own Child.
It does not take a Village to raise a child it takes ONE Parent to have a BRAIN not to KILL their own kid. None of us would be here today if the first cavewomen was just letting their kid walk out of the cave so the animals can kill them.