They thought he was a “tic”-ing time bomb.
A man with Tourette syndrome claimed he was stopped from boarding a JetBlue flight after repeating the word “bomb” uncontrollably.
Michael Doyle said that he had warned TSA officials of his neurological disorder, which is characterized by repetitive, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics.
“With all the stuff in the news about the Boston bombings and stuff, I started ‘tic’-ing ‘bomb.’ Because when I get nervous anything on my mind will come out,” Doyle told MyFoxDC.com.
Doyle was heading from Washington to Puerto Rico for a Revolutionary War reenactment in San Juan with a pal on Thursday when a pilot reportedly overheard him as passengers waited to board the plane.
In a statement to MyFoxDC.com, a JetBlue official said Doyle “was deemed a safety concern by the pilot in command” after using the word “bomb,” although the situation was later deemed “innocuous.”
Doyle was offered a free round-trip ticket — but the airlines couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t be denied access in the future.
“It doesn’t make up for the embarrassment or the fact that we missed something that we’d been planning for two years,” Doyle said. “This has happened multiple times in my life . . . It just hurts.”