by Cris Italia
"[Port Authority officers] told me I had to drink my daughter's breast milk," said McGarry, 40, of Oceanside. Faced with no options, McGarry tried to tell officers that once the milk is tasted through the bottle it would be contaminated and her daughter would not have any food on the plan.
"I suggested that maybe I could put some milk on my arm and lick it off. I even asked for a cup, but they told me I had to drink out of the bottle," McGarry said. According to McGarry, dumping the milk was not an option. It was either drink it or go home. "They told me I could not get on the plane without drinking and then they said 'At least its yours,' and so I drank the breast milk."
To make matters worse McGarry was forced to do this in front of a line of people. And once on the plane, she had no choice but to publicly breast feed her child. "Public breast feeding is something I don't like doing, and I certainly didn't want to do it on the plane."
The incident occurred on April 2, during a trip to Florida to see her mother. It wasn't until last Tuesday that her story became public knowledge. "I was listening to 'Curtis and Kuby' on the radio and they were talking about reverse profiling, and I thought my incident was exactly what they were talking about, so I called in because I wanted to see if it had happened to anyone else," McGarry said. Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby host a morning drive-time show on 770 WABC that McGarry frequently listens to.
"They were really interested in the story and Ron Kuby called me off the air to discuss my incident," she said. After the story hit the airwaves, several media outlets contacted McGarry about her story. "I had everyone calling me. Paula Zahn (CNN), Connie Chung (CNN), Sean Hannity (Fox News), and Good Morning America (ABC)."
Media vans were parked outside her Oceanside home for days. "I couldn't go home for a couple of days; it was just overwhelming. I never thought this would attract this much attention," she said. After she spoke to the New York Post, McGarry says she was just bombarded with phone calls. "My number is unlisted and they were some how able to get my brother's cell phone number. It was very scary how they were able to get all this information."
For now McGarry says she has refused any other interviews. "I'm just going to wait until this all blows over," she said from an unidentified location. She adds that she has not thought about a civil suit against the airlines, but lawyers have contacted her. "I never really thought of suing, but after the radio show I was contacted by lawyers. Right now I don't know what I'm going to do. When this all slows down, I'll talk it over with my husband and decide then."
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey did not return phone calls on the this matter.
