SEATTLE — It really is a story you have to read to believe. A woman from Kirkland, Washington tells KIRO7 that when she flew into Santa Barbara from Seattle in December, she made a truly alarming discovery.
“Then they had opened a bottle of mouthwash and did the same thing; take the caps and throw them away and poured it over my clothes,” Dr. Janina Damm said.
Dr. Damm says one of her smaller bags inside her luggage was stolen, too. She says the part that still haunts her to this day is when she turned on her hair curler.
“When I made the police report, I took my flatiron out and I plugged it in and the room when it started heating up started smelling of urine,” Dr. Damm said. “That is when I realized that whoever did this also urinated in my suitcase,” she continued.
“I started crying. It was so disgusting,” she said.
Dr. Damm showed KIRO 7 the suitcase she claims was soiled and vandalized. She showed our crew the clothes that had yellow stains from both the olive oil and the alleged urine. She says when she got back from her trip to Seattle, she immediately reached out to the SeaTac Police as well as Alaska Airlines. She says she even tried to give it to Alaska Airlines for them to investigate, but was turned away. She says she filed a claim with the airline about the damages to her stuff, but it was denied.
“They denied my claim because they said they don’t cover olive oil that’s not packed correctly,” Dr. Damm said.
Alaska Airlines sent KIRO 7 this statement about Dr. Damm’s claims and why they denied it.
Alaska Airlines has zero tolerance for intentional damage or theft of our guests’ property. We investigate each claim thoroughly, which is what occurred in this case. Through the investigation, we found significant inconsistencies in the guest’s story, which led us to deny the claim. The guest was encouraged to report their allegations of crimes committed against them to law enforcement.
Dr. Damm stands by her story and what happened after we asked her about it.
“I have it right here. I told them that I would give this to them,” Dr. Damm said.
Shockingly, KIRO 7 has learned that Dr. Damm isn’t the only person who had something like this happen to them recently. After she told her story to friends and colleagues, a woman out of Spokane reached out to her and claimed she had a similar experience as well.
KIRO 7 also reached out to SEA Airport about Dr. Damm’s story. A spokesperson says Port Police nor Customer Service have record of it as of now but are looking into it.
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