Ruth Sherman, an 88-year-old frequent flier with JetBlue, has flown from New York to Florida many times, but never has she been taken aside and asked to pull her pants down and show her colostomy bag, as she asserts occurred at Kennedy Airport recently.

It makes Sherman the second elderly woman in recent days to claim that TSA agents forced her to expose herself during a pre-flight security screening. Lenore Zimmerman, a Long Beach, N.Y., resident, says she was required by TSA security screeners to take off her pants as part of a search on Nov. 29. That search likewise took place at the JetBlue terminal at Kennedy.

Sherman, who was returning home Nov. 28 after celebrating Thanksgiving with family in New York, said her initial X-ray screening apparently showed a bulge from her colostomy bag on the side of her body. Screeners then pulled her aside and gave her a pat-down with their hands, including touching her on her legs and her torso near her breasts and around her arms, she said.

That triggered the screeners to order yet another level of search.

“It was awful,” Sherman told msnbc.com from her home in Sunrise, Fla. “They asked me to come into another room. I said ‘Don’t touch me — you have dirty hands.’ I had on plain sweatpants and a top. They made me pull my sweatpants down with my underwear. They invaded my privacy.

“I was so taken aback. I’m on medication, and I didn’t want to get high blood pressure. It was a horrible situation.”

"TSA is currently reviewing recent allegations of passengers who flew out of JFK, " spokesperson Greg Soule said in a statement. "Our preliminary review of each of these claims indicates all screening procedures were followed."

One thing is known, Soule told msnbc.com earlier Monday: “Is removal of underwear proper for (someone with) a colostomy bag? The answer is no.”

JetBlue had little to say. “We’re cooperating with the TSA and ask that you refer to them for additional information,” said Allison Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the airline.

Sherman says it just befuddles her that anyone could mistake her for a terrorist threat. “I said to (the TSA agent), ‘Why are you doing this? I don’t have a bomb here. I’m not blowing myself up.’ ”

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An 85-year-old New York grandmother said Saturday she was injured and humiliated when she was strip searched at an airport after she asked to be patted down instead of going through a body scanner.

Lenore Zimmerman said she was whisked away to a private room and made to take off her pants and other clothes after she asked to forgo the screening because she worried it would interfere with her defibrillator. She missed her flight and had to take one two-and-a-half hours later, she said.

“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she told The New York Daily News. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”

“I was outraged,” said Zimmerman, a retired receptionist.

As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she said the metal bars hit her leg, causing blood to flow from her a gash, the newspaper reported.

“My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig."

But the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement Saturday no strip search was conducted.

"While we regret that the passenger feels she had an unpleasant screening experience, TSA does not include strip searches as part of our security protocols and one was not conducted in this case," the statement read.

Zimmerman was dropped off by her son at Kennedy Airport for a 1 p.m. flight Tuesday to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on JetBlue, she said. She arrived to the ticket counter around 12:20 p.m. and headed for security in a wheelchair, her small, metal walker in her lap.

She's been traveling to Florida for at least a decade and has never had a problem being patted down until now, she said. "I worry about my heart, so I don't want to go through those things," she said referring to the advanced image technology screening machines now in place at the airport.

Related: Too old to travel alone? Companies provide escorts

Private screening
As a result, she said she was taken into the private screening room by one agent and made to strip.

A review of closed-circuit television at the airport showed proper procedures were followed, Jonathan Allen, a TSA spokesman, said in a statement.

"Private screening was requested by the passenger, it was granted and lasted approximately 11 minutes," the statement read. "TSA screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy and that occurred in this instance."

The private screening was not recorded.

Zimmerman, who spends half the year in Long Beach, N.Y., said she banged her shin during the process and it bled "like a pig," partly because she is on blood-thinning medication. She said an emergency medical technician patched her up, but she was told to see a doctor when she arrived in Florida to make sure the wound didn't get infected. There are no records indicating medical attention was called on her behalf.

"I don't know what triggered this. I don't know why they singled me out," she said.

Her son Bruce Zimmerman said he'd like to see someone fired, and screeners re-trained after his mother's ordeal.

"My mother is a little old woman. She's not disruptive or uncooperative," he said Saturday. "I don't understand how this happened."

He said she's had an increasingly difficult time traveling, especially since her husband died a few years ago. She has two grandchildren, and her older son, a doctor, died in 2007.

Meanwhile, Lenore Zimmerman said she was healing, planned to go to the grocery store on Saturday and take it easy. Weather was about 76 and sunny, and she's not headed back to an airport until April when she returns to New York.

"Thank goodness," she said. "It will give me some time to brace myself for the return flight."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A teenage girl's sense of style got her in trouble at the airport.

Vanessa Gibbs, 17, claims the Transportation Security Administration stopped her at the security gate because of the design of a gun on her handbag.

Gibbs said she had no problem going through security at Jacksonville International Airport, but rather, when she headed home from Virginia. "It's my style, it's camouflage, it has an old western gun on it," Gibbs said.

But her preference for the pistol style didn't sit well with TSA agents at the Norfolk airport.

Gibbs said she was headed back home to Jacksonville from a holiday trip when an agent flagged her purse as a security risk. "She was like, 'This is a federal offense because it's in the shape of a gun,'" Gibbs said. "I'm like, 'But it's a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?'"

After agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, TSA told her to check the bag or turn it over. By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead, worrying her mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at JIA.

"Oh, it's terrifying. I was so upset," said Tami Gibbs, the teen's mom. "I was on the phone all the way to Orlando trying to figure out what was going on with her. It was terrifying. I don't ever want to go through it again."

Vanessa and her mom said it's hard to believe anyone could mistake the design on the purse for a real gun because it's just a few inches in size and it's hollow, not to mention Vanessa has taken it on planes before. "I carried this from Jacksonville to Norfolk, and I've carried it from Norfolk to Jacksonville," Vanessa said. "Never once has anyone said anything about it until now."

TSA isn't budging on the handbag, arguing the phony gun could be considered a "replica weapon." The TSA says "replica weapons have prohibited since 2002."

It's a rule that Vanessa feels can't be applied to a purse. "Common sense," she said. "It's a purse, not a weapon." A TSA official at JIA said it's not that uncommon for passengers to wear something that could be considered a gun replica, but the official encourages everyone to check the prohibited items list, which can be found online or at the airport before going through security.

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Members of the U.S. military flying on official orders while in uniform may soon see faster security screening while traveling through the nation's airports.

The U.S. House of Representatives today voted 404 to 0 to approve H.R. 1801, also known as the ‘‘Risk-Based Security Screening for Members of The Armed Forces Act," which will now be sent to the Senate. If passed by the Senate and signed into law by President Barack Obama, the Transportation Security Administration within six months will be required to implement expedited security screening for members of the U.S. military and any family members traveling with them.

“With all the contention and political gridlock we’ve witnessed over the past several months, what’s most important is that we come together to agree where we can,” said Rep. Chip Cravaack, R-Minn., in a statement. “In respect to our men and women in uniform and in the best interest of our national security, this bipartisan initiative is the least we could do for our military personnel and their families traveling our nation’s airports while serving our country." 

Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif., a member of the Committee on Homeland Security on which Cravaack also serves, urged support of the bill from the House floor. "It’s needed, it’s common sense and it’s legislation with bipartisan support,” she said.

The legislation is a step toward a more risk-based, intelligence-driven security screening system, rather than a  one-size-fits-all approach. The TSA is currently testing a "PreCheck" program for travelers who provide personal information in exchange for the possibility of faster screening at airports in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit and Miami, with plans to expand to airports in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.  

TSA spokesman Greg Soule told msnbc.com that the agency already expedites screening for wounded veterans and allows service members in uniform with proper ID to keep their shoes or boots on while passing through security checkpoints.

The TSA also is testing a military ID card-reading program at Monterey Peninsula Airport, Soule said. The pilot program is designed to test the technology necessary to verify the status of U.S. service members and could pave the way for troops to be included in TSA's PreCheck expedited screening program.

“While this program would not guarantee expedited screening — we must retain a certain element of randomness to prevent terrorists from gaming the system — the testing of this concept holds the potential to significantly change the travel experience for members of the U.S. Armed Forces in the future,” Soule said.

Brandon Macsata, executive director for the Association for Airline Passenger Rights, said he supports the legislation.

"We contend that like pilots who have already undergone extensive security screenings and [are] put in charge of the aircraft's overall safety and security, men and women serving in our armed services should be afford the same expedited screening," Macsata  told msnbc.com. "U.S. military traveling on official orders are executing their sworn duty to defend the country, and as such they should not be delayed with long airport security screenings."

However, Erica Pena-Vest, founder and travel editor for GuidetoMilitaryTravel.com, told msnbc.com that while she thinks members of Congress have their heart in the right place, she's never heard any active-duty member of the military complain about having to go through airport security, just like any other American. “Most military people don’t like to be singled out,” she said, adding that only the U.S. Army travels in uniform.

“I think as a society we can think of other ways to honor our military," said Pena-Vest, who is married to an aviator in the U.S. Navy. "I don’t necessarily think that helping them expedite the security screening process is necessarily the answer."

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Joy Jernigan is a senior travel editor for msnbc.com. Follow her on Twitter.