Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #478

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Toddler Spins, Scrambles On Wild Luggage Belt Ride at Atlanta Airport
Click Here for Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCBK3LD6k70
Video has emerged of a toddler who climbed onto a conveyor belt scrambling over suitcases during his wild ride on a luggage chute, which took him underground inside the world's busiest airport.
Edith Vega's son
Lorenzo, 2, climbed aboard the belt when she briefly set him down to print a boarding pass at Hartsfield- Jackson Atlanta International Airport, she told police.
Security video later released by the airport shows
some of what happened next.
One camera recorded Lorenzo disap- pearing feet-first through a rubber curtain, beyond the reach of his mother and an airport worker.
Video then shows him crawl-
ing over bags, trying to avoid being pulled through a large screening machine that resembles a darkened cave above the con- veyor belt. But the conveyor is too fast, and it pulls him inside.
He pops out on
the other side, only to tumble down into anoth- er room where startled security workers pluck him from the belt and give him hugs.
The screening machine had detected a prob- lem, and diverted the child on a path for bags in need of more checks, TSA spokesman Mark Howell said Thursday. That's when workers rushed to help, the video shows.
"The officers who work down there, almost all of them are par- ents," Mr Howell said.
Mr Howell spoke with some of the workers who were on duty that day in the noisy baggage area,
who recalled hearing what they thought was a cat screaming. Once they saw the child, they raced to his aid, the video shows.
"It was quite a moment that really brought perspective to life and how impor- tant life is," one of the TSA work- ers, Christopher Strickland, told ABC's Good Morning America .
The child's hand was fractured, but he's other- wise OK, authori- ties said.
"I'm thankful he's alive," Ms Vega told WSB-TV.
"That's all that goes through my mind. I'm just grateful he's here."
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine