enlarge Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Jim Cloutier of Saco has waited 10 weeks for his prosthetic leg to be returned from London’s Heathrow International Airport.

SACO — You'd think it would have happened a long time ago. You'd think someone in the vast security operation at London's Heathrow International Airport would have unzipped Jim Cloutier's carry-on bag, looked inside and gasped.

Right there on top, right where he last saw it 10 weeks ago today, is Cloutier's prosthetic leg.

"What's the first thing that would come to your mind?" Cloutier asked last week. "Somebody's missing something really important, right? Is there that much indifference between everybody these days that nobody's willing to do their job? Are they really that indifferent?"

Apparently so.

Three months ago, Cloutier, 54, embarked along with his buddy Kevin Gato on "the trip of a lifetime" – a two-week group tour of Ireland and England, complete with scenic vistas, good food and tip-top amenities.

He needed it. A longtime diabetic, Cloutier ran into serious medical trouble last fall when, over the course of 12 weeks, he had quintuple bypass surgery on his heart and had his lower right leg amputated because of an infection in his heel.

Put more simply, Cloutier said, "I'm lucky to be alive."

So off he and Gato went in early June to live life to its fullest, Cloutier walking around on his three-week-old prosthetic leg like he'd been doing it all his life.

"I used it constantly, and it worked wonderfully," he said. "I was able to climb the Cliffs of Moore. Anything you could do, I could do."

Or so he thought.

It turns out that on the flight over, when he should have taken off the prosthetic to prevent swelling and blood clots, Cloutier left it on. By the end of the tour, he found himself flat on his back in a Killarney hospital with a swollen upper right leg, too much potassium in his blood and, worst of all, clots in his lungs.

"The only way they wanted me to head home was by ship" to avoid circulatory complications brought on by flying at high altitudes, Cloutier said. "But then the doctor said if I didn't wear my prosthetic leg and I moved around on the plane, it would be OK to fly home."

So on June 14, Cloutier (on crutches, with the prosthetic leg safe in his carry-on bag) and Gato flew from Dublin to Heathrow.

Upon landing, they had just 90 minutes to change terminals and catch their trans-Atlantic flight to Boston. By the time they got off the bus at Heathrow's international terminal, their window was down to an hour.

"They put me in a wheelchair and brought me to the special area where they deal with wheelchair people," Cloutier recalled. "I'm sitting there and nobody's coming and I'm thinking, 'Geez, my flight's in an hour.' So I finally spoke up."

Airport personnel shifted into high gear, overriding the computer that won't accept a passport bar code if takeoff is less than an hour away and whisking Cloutier to the security screening area. There, they wheeled him through the scanner while a security officer went through his carry-on.

"Then the guy finishes with my bag and sets it behind the table because he's going to look at Kevin's bag," Cloutier said.

The next thing Cloutier knew, an attendant was hurriedly wheeling him to the gate, where the entire British Airways flight was waiting for him and Gato. He boarded the aircraft, assuming that Gato was somewhere behind him with his bag.

Gato showed up a few minutes later and settled into his seat.

"Do you have my bag?" asked Cloutier.

"No," Gato replied, "You have it."

"No, I don't," Cloutier said.

By now the aircraft had left the gate. Cloutier explained his dilemma to the flight attendants, noting that his insulin was in the bag along with his prosthetic leg. But he also assured the worried flight crew that he had more insulin at home and wouldn't need his next dose until the following morning.

So rather than delay the flight, he accepted the flight steward's assurance that his bag would...