Lorenzo Vega seemed to have had the time of his life when he climbed on a conveyor belt behind the closed and unstaffed ticket counter of Spirit Airlines on Monday afternoon, July 22, 2019 in the North Terminal at the international airport which serves the greater Atlanta metropolitan area — and several clips of surveillance video were released on Wednesday, July 24, 2019 which documents most of the journey of approximately five minutes that the young boy spent through the secured areas of the airport.
Raw Videos: Two-Year-Old Child Climbed Onto Luggage Conveyor Belt at Atlanta Airport
The boy — who is two years old — was hospitalized after being injured when he fell into the baggage room of the Transportation Security Administration at the end of his journey through the bowels of the airport.
Edith Vega — who is the mother of Lorenzo — said that she set the toddler down for a moment so that she could print a boarding pass at a kiosk near the conveyor belt..
…but when she looked up, it was too late. Lorenzo was already on his way, as shown in the first video. Lorenzo can be seen wandering towards the conveyor belt — looking back first to see if anyone was watching — and then climbing onto it just as a yellow and black bag was approaching.
An employee stops the conveyor belt — but the child already disappeared down a chute. Several people seemed to be frantic as to what to do next.
At the 5:52 mark in the video, the child is seen riding the conveyor belt with bags. Despite trying to turn around and crawl away, he goes through the luggage scanner. Luggage continues to follow him through the scanner.
Look carefully on the left in the second video and you can see Lorenzo passing by on the conveyor belt after passing through the baggage scanner. At the 0:53 second mark, the surveillance footage switches to the camera located in the baggage room of the Transportation Security Administration.
At the 2:00 minute mark in the video, agents of the Transportation Security Administration notice Lorenzo on the conveyor belt and immediately spring into action to save the boy, who first appears in the top center of the video at the 2:03 mark. The conveyor belt is shut down at the 2:12 mark so that the toddler may be rescued.
The right hand of the boy was reportedly fractured and the skin of his arm was cut in several places, resulting in members of Atlanta Fire and Rescue taking him and his mother to the hospital; but when and how it actually happened is not clear at the time this article was written.
Multiple agencies are investigating this incident; and in reference to it, the following statement was released from Spirit Airlines on Tuesday, July 23, 2019:
Spirit Airlines is aware of an incident at Hartsfield Jackson Intl in which an unattended child passed by a section of our ticket counter that was not staffed or open at the time. The child was able to access a back baggage area via a bag belt and sustained some injuries.
We are currently working with the TSA and airport officials to ensure all protocol was followed. We wish the child the best in their recovery.
Summary
Two lessons are to be learned from this incident, through which the outcome could have been a lot worse:
- Never leave a child alone, unattended or unsupervised — even for a brief moment — especially in a public place such as an airport.
- Do not leave a conveyor belt running without proper supervision or precautions to keep a similar incident such as this one from happening again — especially near a closed and unmanned ticket counter.
Multiple sources were used for this article; and the raw videos were from surveillance cameras of the Transportation Security Administration at the international airport in Atlanta via CBS 46 WGCL-TV News in Atlanta.
Photograph ©2016 by Brian Cohen.
