A woman is seeking answers from Southwest after noticing something bizarre and downright disgusting in one of her personal belongings after getting off a flight with the airline.
In a TikTok video, a passenger named Sally admitted that she was both confused and, rightfully, angry at the way Southwest employees treated her belongings and demanded that something be done about her ruined things.
The passenger accused a Southwest employee of going to the bathroom in a guitar case she was traveling with, which held an urn of her mother’s ashes.
“Yesterday, an incident occurred and I’m deeply concerned with how it was handled,” began Sally in her video. “My guitar was lost during my flight and did not show up at the destination that I was at.”
She explained that her guitar was to be shipped to the location where she was, which happened. However, when she finally received her guitar and its case, she was shocked at what she found when she opened it. The inside of her guitar case was incredibly wet and had the distinct smell of urine, making it obvious that someone had gone to the bathroom inside of it.
On top of her actual guitar being ruined, Sally had put the urn holding her mother’s ashes in the case, as well. Because of the urine, her late mother’s ashes were ruined.
Sally immediately called Southwest and spoke to several people, explaining what had happened with her guitar case and that it had been destroyed in such a vulgar manner.
“I don’t feel as though it was taken as seriously as it should be, considering this is a biohazard. I touch this with my bare hands trying to figure out why my guitar is soaking wet and I have cuts on my fingers. And I have a urine-covered guitar. This guitar mattered a lot to me, and I had things to do with it.”
The passenger was originally told that she would have to wait 30 days for a response from Southwest.
Not only was it disrespectful and incredibly demeaning for Sally to open up her personal belongings to find that everything had been ruined, but when she attempted to bring this issue up with Southwest 30 days after filing an initial report, she was told that it would be another month until she received an actual response.
Of course, that didn’t sit well with Sally, who demanded that something be done about it immediately.
“There’s a (pee)-covered guitar from one of your employees,” she pointed out. “Who decided to open up my guitar and pee all over my dead mother’s ashes and my guitar.”
According to the U.S. Department of Transportationif a claim is filed with the airline in the allotted time, which Sally did, and the item was damaged beyond repair, the airline will “negotiate a compensation amount based on the value.” There are exceptions, however, for what the DOT called “fragile items, perishable items, and other valuables.”
That vague catch-all could leave Sally in a lurch, unfortunately.
The passenger admitted that there’s zero ‘compensation’ for the state of her late mother’s ashes.
In a follow-up video, she addressed comments from people and elaborated more on opening her ruined guitar case and finding that everything inside had been urinated on.
She claimed that everything in the case was beyond soaked, and as she was pressing on it, the liquid was seeping out of the sides, which caused her friend to become nauseous at the smell.
“People were concerned that I was more concerned about my guitar than my dead mother’s ashes. Then there were a bunch of people, who I’m assuming have also lost somebody, who said that there’s nothing that can be done to rectify that,” Sally said. “They are correct.”
She insisted that the thought of having to send away her mother’s ashes to get tested for DNA to get to the bottom of who urinated in her guitar bag was something that she couldn’t imagine doing.
Even just having to remove her mother’s ashes from the case, which she hasn’t been able to do in the three years that her mother has been gone, is an overwhelming thought.
After her mom and grandma passed away, Sally said that music and art were something that she leaned on during her grief, which just makes this entire debacle that much more heartbreaking.
Hopefully, with how viral her video has gone, it will catch the attention of Southwest, and they can at least take the necessary steps to not only find the employee responsible but also provide Sally with money to replace her guitar, even though no amount of money in the world can replace the damage done to her mother’s ashes.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.
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