Baby held in locked room at airport dies – The Honolulu Advertiser Cripes. When will this end? My guess: the baby was on the no-fly list.
A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy’s family said.
The Honolulu medical examiner’s office yesterday identified the infant as Michael Futi of Tafuna, American Samoa’s largest village, which is located on the east coast of Tutuila Island. Autopsy findings have been deferred.
According to police, the child died at 5:50 a.m. It is unknown why immigration officials detained the mother, the nurse and the child.
Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said the child went into respiratory failure while in the customs office, which is located near the baggage claims area of the overseas terminal. Airport paramedics were called about 6:10 a.m., he said.
The group arrived on a Hawaiian Airlines flight that landed at 5:30 a.m.
“We were later told the baby was coming here for heart surgery,” Ishikawa said.
Found by Tom Lothian
I’d hate to be in those immigration official’s shoes right now. Samoans have the strength of five men and can crush a human skull like it was balsa wood.
Timeline…twenty minutes after landing…that poor kid was going to die at ground transportation or while waiting for luggage. IMO they were at least a couple days late arriving.
#2 – Olo Baggins – I am going to disagree with you. I would be willing to bet there was medical personnel waiting for them somewhere within the airport.
#2 – Olo Baggins of Bywater – There was medical transportation waiting for him at the airport. The airport was warned of him and his needs ahead of time. Even if they weren’t, there was no reason for this to have happen.
Our government is our own worst enemy. Disgusting.
I feel so much safer now, dont you?
US Immigration needs a working over. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
Another classic Dvorak Misleading Headline
The group arrived on a Hawaiian Airlines flight that landed at 5:30 a.m.
According to police, the child died at 5:50 a.m.
Has anyone ever landed at an international airport and been able to clear customs in 20 minutes?
The kid was going to die regardless of where he was.
One less brown skinned person the Good ole wholesome, God fearing, gay bashing, blue eyed, blond haired, fair skinned Republican Americans have to worry about stealing their jobs.
And Pedro is also happy.
Their people are not allowed any discretion in applying rules, therefore they are lead to idiocy.
I would not work for any organization where I can’t use my own judgment.
#8 the story says that he was detained by immigration, not by customs.
As a matter of fact, I’ve cleared immigration quickly, a lot depends upon where you are in the lineup. In 1984, Zurich airport, there was maybe a 15 second delay for immigration. In 2007, Guadalajara, Mexico, I was through in a minute.
If for any reason they needed to delay the baby, they could have put him in a room with medics and equipment, say a respirator. I’m afraid that the officials just didn’t rise to the occasion.
I would have gone insane if they had killed MY son with their stupidity-I would probably gone insane and murdered the nearest airline employee right then and there. Damn, some kid was getting tough with my boy and it took my wife to keep me from assaulting the poor child. The thought of ANYTHING hurting him drives me like an engine toward violence so his death like this poor kid in the article-let’s just say we would all be famous by the time I was done.
It would seem this child might have needed more care than he was getting. I don’t know how long the flight was, but if the baby died 20 minutes after landing while getting the same care as he had on the flight, there was no chance of survival. A child in that desperate of a situation deserves more than a flight with a nurse and a regular trip through customs and immigration. Although this is a tragedy, I don’t think it fits in with all the other stories we are hearing about airport security these days.
12,
I would probably do the same as you… but you know how the media would spin it… Crazed foreigner murders American Homeland Security Officer.
#11 said: In 1984, Zurich airport, there was maybe a 15 second delay for immigration.
Clearing customs in 15 seconds??? give me a break. Everyone knows that there is a hell of difference between customs in 1984 and 2008. Remember 9/11?
And the facts indicate the flight landed at 5:30am and the kid was in the holding area at 5:50am. Considering the time to taxi to the gate, offload, walk through the secured area to the customs area, that 20 minutes gets eaten up fast.
Bottom line: the holding room did not kill the kid as the headline implies.
Usually persons who are arriving for surgical procedures have emergency transport waiting at the airport and while their luggage may take time to clear, the people themselves are usually fastracked through the bureaucracy to save time. And last I looked Samoa was a US territory so it isn’t like they came from a “hostile nation”. At the very least the actions of whatever official detained them consitutes reckless endangerment.
I would feel better about all the hassle I now get at airports and passport control if I believed it will actually make us safer.
But I don’t.
It seems that the Bush administration has security bass-ackwards.
Instead of screen millions of innocent people, they need to pro-actively identify the few thousand terrorists, infiltrate their groups and bring ’em down.
#15 – jbenson2
On several occasions, I’ve cleared both Immigration and Customs very quickly since September 11th at US Ports of Entry.
Fort Lauderdale arriving from Jamaica, San Juan from the Dominican Republic, and Phoenix from London are the three that stick out in my mind. (With checked baggage on the London trip even.)
I won’t even mention Toronto or Nassau as those were before I boarded the flight to the US… 🙂
As usual, you cannot ascertain the facts from the article, both through imprecise writing and lack of details. Everyone commenting wades right in using it for their own purposes. It says the child was traveling with a nurse. If the child was thought to be that sick, why didn’t the nurse have the proper equipment? The child survived a several hour flight, but those twenty minutes were fatal? The article also states that the officials were notified LATER about the medical situation. No one, especially now, is off a plane and through customs and immigration in minutes. Someone dropped the ball on this one, but assigning blame from that short article only shows how closed minded most people are.
#12, Please resume (or start) taking your meds.
Did the TSA/DHS idiots at the Airport understand why “American Samoa” has the word AMERICAN in it?
AFAIK the Samoan terrorist threat lately is a mere trickle, except for their tattooed flamespitting warriors that entertain us at festivals I suppose.
#19, Wait,
Yes, let’s not be presumptuous.
Just because the party had medical equipment on the plane. Does not mean they would have been able to retain that equipment through immigration & customs. There most certainly are defibrillators on planes. The party was locked in a room, that does not mean they were allowed something like a defibrillator that has the potential to be used as a weapon later. Also, maybe the baby needed oxygen or even the tank replenished. Do you really think they would have been allowed to bring medicines into their detention room if the baby needed a shot of something?
Regardless, they still have a duty of care to the people under their control. If that person requires medical intervention it is their duty to provide it. To lock a very sick person in a room is unforgivable. I hope the local DA investigates this tragedy.
#15, jbenson,
Bottom line: the holding room did not kill the kid as the headline implies.
Sorry to correct you, but you couldn’t be more wrong. If you had taken the time to notice, this article was written on Feb. 12. A quick search found an update for Feb. 16 which adds a little more meat to the story.
The baby did not die until the next morning.
The baby went into distress from the oppressive heat in the room.
There were questions about the mothers visa. The nurse and baby though were American nationals. There was no reason to lock the baby or nurse in the room.
When the boy went into respiratory distress, the nurse begged officials to let them out of the room.
They were in the room for at least 30 minutes until paramedics were called. The paramedics rushed the baby to the hospital where he later died.
As the second article points out, the Customs and Immigration officials won’t answer any questions. Yes, the family plans to sue. Yes, several politicians are upset and are asking Homeland Security questions.
For the life of me, I could not figure out how a baby could be a threat to a national security.
#23, Enesi,
How long has it been since you last changed the diaper of a two week old baby?
For the life of me, I dont understand why hold the nurse and the baby, if their was a problem with the mother, why not let the nurse and the baby through, the biggest problem is that they are so narrow minded and see the colour of the mother’s skin, they can not afford a private jet or any other means of transport for their son, one minute, or not even a minute make a lot of different to someone’s life. There is no amount of money, can make that poor mother feel better about what happen, you can not go down the street and buy another baby! I think if everyone of us just take a little care, loving, helpful, humility, towards oneanother, the whole world will be heaven.