Man who died in freak MRI accident was jammed in machine for almost an hour, never told to remove 20-pound chain: family
Keith McAllister, 61, was fatally injured in the bizarre incident, which unfolded Wednesday afternoon inside Nassau Open MRI in Westbury while his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, was at the center to have an image of her knee taken.
3 Keith McAllister suffered multiple heart attacks and died after he was sucked into an MRI machine.
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'While my mother was laying on the table, the technician left the room to get her husband to help her off the table. He forgot to inform him to take the chain he was wearing from around his neck off when the magnet sucked him in,' daughter of Jones-McAllister, Samantha Bodden, wrote in a GoFundMe for burial costs.
3 McAllister was attached to the MRI machine for an hour before he was released.
Brigitte Stelzer
'My mother and the tech tried for several minutes to release him before the police were called,' she wrote.
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'He was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain from the machine.'
3 McAllister's family said the Nassau Open MRI technician knew her husband was wearing the chain.
Brigitte Stelzer
Bodden added that McAllister was led into the room by an MRI technician who did not inform him to take off his chain.
'Several news stations are saying he wasn't authorized to be in the room when in fact he was because the technician went and brought him into the room,' the statement said.
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The strong magnetic field created by an MRI machine can cause metal objects to be pulled in with force.
They can also heat up metal objects, potentially burning a patient.
Jones-McAllister said her husband suffered several heart attacks as a result of the incident, which ultimately led to his death.
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H., Montalban, X., Mowry, E. M., … Cohen, J. A. (2018). Diagnosis of multiple sclerosis: 2017 revisions of the McDonald criteria. The Lancet. Neurology, 17(2), 162–173. [14] Langer-Gould, A. M., Cepon-Robins, T. J., Benn Torres, J., Yeh, E. A., & Gildner, T. E. (2025). Embodiment of structural racism and multiple sclerosis risk and outcomes in the USA. Nature reviews. Neurology, 21(7), 370–382. [15] Sbardella, E., Tona, F., Petsas, N., & Pantano, P. (2013). DTI Measurements in Multiple Sclerosis: Evaluation of Brain Damage and Clinical Implications. Multiple sclerosis international, 2013, 671730.
Scientific American
a day ago
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MRI Accidents Explained: What Causes Deaths and Injuries in Scanners
Last month a man on Long Island died after he was pulled into a magnetic resonance imaging scanner by a large metal chain he was wearing around his neck. It's not the first time an MRI scanner has proved to be a death trap. In this latest case, according to media reports, the man had accompanied his wife to the MRI center and was waiting outside the exam room while her knee was being scanned. When the procedure was completed, she called him over so that he could help her stand up. The man entered the MRI room, and a 20-pound chain he was wearing around his neck for weight training was immediately attracted to the magnet in the MRI. It pulled the man's body with it, hurled him against the scanner and trapped him there. He sustained serious injuries and was pronounced dead at a hospital the following day. How could this happen? An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields generated by metal coils in its core, and other fields are then added in pulses. In simple terms, a static magnetic field orients the nuclei of hydrogen atoms in the body so they're all facing the same direction; the magnetic pulses briefly redirect the nuclei, and then they align themselves in parallel again. The scanner detects these shifts and uses them to create images of the tissue. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In terms of safety, the problem is that, as current flows through the device, it becomes a huge and extremely powerful electromagnet. Ferromagnetic materials—which, at room temperature, include iron, cobalt, nickel and some metal alloys—are attracted to it with a great deal of force. That means metallic objects that come close to a switched on MRI can become dangerous projectiles. 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