LONG ISLAND (WABC) — It’s hard enough facing price hikes, long security lines and constant gate changes, but lost luggage is the worst.<\/p>\n
Especially if you’ve packed some pricey items, which is exactly what happened to a Long Island family who contacted 7 On Your Side.<\/p>\n
Patty Werner-Els headed to Europe to support her son’s Berlin marathon run — but after landing at JFK Airport, several suitcases and her granddaughter’s car seat were nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n
“We had to hire an Uber with a car seat to try to get them back from JFK to Manhattan,” Patty said.<\/p>\n
Everyone else got their luggage eventually, but Patty’s never arrived.<\/p>\n
Inside was a pricey piece of medical equipment to treat her sleep apnea.<\/p>\n
“You stop breathing. It wakes you up immediately, and you keep getting woken up all night long,” Patty described her struggle with sleep apnea.<\/p>\n
The CPAP machine cost her $899.<\/p>\n
She says she went several rounds with the carrier, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, to get them to pay for the CPAP and other items in her missing suitcase.<\/p>\n
“When you asked the airline and said, listen, I need this cpap to sleep, to breathe, I got to be reimbursed, what do they say?” Nina asked.<\/p>\n
“Absolutely nothing. They, they didn’t have any… they didn’t care. ‘We’re looking,'” Patty said.<\/p>\n
That search stretched into three months with no money back, and since her medical insurance had already paid for the one that got lost, Patty was forced to purchase a new CPAP out of pocket.<\/p>\n
“So I said, well, let me look up on the internet who could help me out … You were the first to come up. And I said, well, let me just contact you.”<\/p>\n
So Patty contacted the 7 On Your Side team.<\/p>\n
Patty had been trying to resolve this on her own since before Christmas, with no results.<\/p>\n
As soon as 7 On Your Side got in touch with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a spokesperson said that her reimbursement was approved, adding their apologies for the lost luggage.<\/p>\n
Patty was reimbursed $2087.71 for her lost luggage, more than enough to pay her back for the new CPAP machine.<\/p>\n
———-
SHARE YOUR STORY<\/p>\n
Do you have an issue with a company that you haven’t been able to resolve? If so, 7 On Your Side wants to help you!<\/p>\n
Fill out the form below or email your questions, issues, or story ideas by filling out the form below or by emailing 7OnYourSideNina@abc.com.<\/p>\n
All emails MUST INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND CELLPHONE NUMBER. Without a phone number, 7 On Your Side will not be able to respond.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG ISLAND (WABC) — It’s hard enough facing price hikes, long security lines and constant gate changes, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[77916,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-195334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-77916","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}