Eight Days Homeless...in an airport?

I'm just not sure what to make of this story:

As ABC News explains it, Weissinger checked one bag too many and incurred a $60 fee that she couldn't pay on the spot. She hadn't expected the fees because her itinerary failed to mention them. For security/terrorist-related reasons her airline, U.S. Airways, wouldn't let her abandon one of her bags at the airport, and they also wouldn't let her pay the fees once she got to Idaho. So she missed her flight, which resulted in another fee. Then U.S. Airways told her she had to buy a brand-new ticket, which cost $1,000. And this is how she became trapped in the airport.

I'm not sure how one gets "trapped" in an airport. Surely she came to the airport from some place. Could she not return there?

It all sounds like a case of mental illness:

For eight days Weissinger wandered the corridors, slept on the floor, and generally felt like the star of a remake of The Terminal—minus the peanut can (we assume) but with some extra Kafkaesque elements (for example, she was nearly arrested for vagrancy...like being there was her choice!).

EIGHT DAYS? I dunno, when I miss a flight, I make arrangements to stay somewhere. While I'm willing to believe that airline gate agents are douchebags enough to give this woman no hope, still, eight days?