TSA officer rescues wedding dress left behind at Newark Airport security by bride’s mother
Newark NJ Aug 26 2020 It took a prayer and an empathetic TSA officer, but Narolin Cepeda got her wedding gown back just in time.
Cepeda’s mother left that and her own dress, both in the same rolling bag, at a security checkpoint at Newark Airport as she was flying to Ohio for the event, the Asbury Park Press reported.
It was the day before the wedding, and Cepeda’s mother had left the red rolling suitcase containing the garments at the checkpoint. The bride-to-be’s brother, Christopher Cepeda, went online and filled out a form, lobbing a virtual message in a cyber bottle to the TSA’s lost and found office. He didn’t have much hope that they would retrieve the dress on time, if at all. He crossed his fingers.
Luckily, enterprising TSA guard Loletta Nathan-Gordon was on the receiving end.
“As soon as I submitted the request, we lost hope of retrieving the luggage on time for the wedding because the web site indicated that the response time was about five days,” Christopher Cepeda told ABC News. “But thanks to Loletta, she called me immediately after the request, and I was ecstatic to hear from TSA so quickly.”
Nathan-Gordon, a TSA administrative assistant, took just six minutes to respond, according to ABC News. She made a phone call, learned the bag was still at the checkpoint, had it brought to her desk and arranged for overnight shipping.
The bag arrived at the bride’s hotel at 8:55 a.m. the next morning, the Asbury Park Press reported.
“Put myself in the bride’s shoes,” Nathan-Gordon told the Asbury Park Press. “I could only imagine how stressful that would have been for me if my mom would have left the dress behind. I would have freaked out.”
By all accounts, Nathan-Gordon helped avert nuptial calamity.
“She literally saved my sister’s wedding,” Christopher Cepeda told the Asbury Park Press. “If it wasn’t for her, everything would have been a disaster.”
