Man dies after being pulled into MRI machine while wearing metal chain
The man, 61, had entered an MRI room while a scan was underway Wednesday afternoon at Nassau Open MRI. The machine's strong magnetic force drew him in by the metallic chain around his neck, according to a release from the Nassau County Police Department.
He died Thursday afternoon, but a police officer who answered the phone at the Nassau County police precinct where the MRI facility is located said the department had not yet been given permission to release the name Saturday.
Adrienne Jones-McAllister told News 12 Long Island in a recorded interview that she was undergoing an MRI on her knee when she asked the technician to get her husband, Keith McAllister, to help her get off the table. She said she called out to him.
She told News 12 that the technician summoned into the room her husband, who was wearing a 20-pound chain that he uses for weight training, an object they'd had a casual conversation about during a previous visit with comments like: 'Ooooooh, that's a big chain!'
When he got close to her, she said, 'at that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in and he hit the MRI.'
'I said: 'Could you turn off the machine, call 911, do something, Turn this damn thing off!'' she recalled, as tears ran down her face. 'He went limp in my arms.'
She said the technician helped her try to pull her husband off the machine but it was impossible.
'He waved goodbye to me and then his whole body went limp,' Jones-McAllister told the TV outlet.
Jones-McAllister told News 12 that McAllister suffered heart attacks after he was freed from the MRI machine.
A person who answered the phone at Nassau Open MRI on Long Island declined to comment Friday. The phone number went unanswered on Saturday.
It wasn't the first New York death to result from an MRI machine.
In 2001, 6-year-old Michael Colombini of Croton-on-Hudson was killed at the Westchester Medical Center when an oxygen tank flew into the chamber, drawn in by the MRI's 10-ton electromagnet.
In 2010, records filed in Westchester County revealed that the family settled a lawsuit for $2.9 million.
MRI machines 'employ a strong magnetic field' that 'exerts very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels, and other magnetizable objects,' according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which says the units are 'strong enough to fling a wheelchair across the room.'
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New York Post
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- New York Post
Expert outlines grim reality of MRI's dangers after man with 20-pound chain dies in machine mishap: ‘Snap his neck'
The Long Island man killed in a freak MRI accident stood no chance against the machine's magnetic field that pulled him in with enough force to 'snap his neck,' according to an expert in the field. A 20-pound chain that Kevin McAllister was wearing around his neck would have been yanked into the machine at Nassau Open MRI with 'hundreds of pounds' of force, Dr. Emanuel Kanal told the Post on Tuesday. 'Even if he was standing there holding the chain in his hands, the strongest weightlifter would not be able to prevent this kind of an accident from happening,' said Kanal, director of Magnetic Resonance Service at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. 3 Keith McAllister, 61, suffered multiple heart attacks after he was sucked into an MRI machine by his 20-pound metal chain. Facebook/Karim McAllister 'The problem is it's not a regular magnet, it's not a regular piece of iron. It's an unbelievably powerful magnet, and it's an unbelievably large piece of iron,' Kanal said, adding that the two factors resulted in 'hundreds of pounds of attraction in the direction of the magnet.' McAllister was pinned to the machine for over an hour by the massive exercise chain fitted with a padlock that he wore when he was allegedly led into the machine room by an MRI technician to help his wife who was having her knee examined, his family said. When he got 'within a few inches' of the machine, it could suddenly pull with 'such strength that it could have pulled sufficiently strongly to snap his neck,' Kanal said. 3 Family of McAllister claimed the 61-year-old was led into the machine room by a technician who did not tell the doting husband to remove his large metal chain. Brigitte Stelzer McAllister was pronounced dead at North Shore University Hospital the day after the bizarre accident with the cause being identified as three heart attacks, according to his family. '[D]epending on the status of his health, he may have had problems with cardiovascular disease before, and when the excitement happened, he could have had a heart attack just from the event itself,' Kanal stated. McAllister's wife described the haunting moments when her husband was breathing his last. 'His body went limp,' Adrienne Jones-McAllister told News 12 Long Island. 'He went limp in my arms and this is still pulsating in my brain,' she told the outlet through tears. Despite decades in the medical industry, Kanal said the bizarre manner of death is incredibly rare. 3 The MRI machine could have pulled McAllister with enough force to snap his neck, an expert told The Post. Brigitte Stelzer '[It's] extremely rare that someone dies because of an interaction with a strong magnetic field — probably fewer than a dozen times since MRI first became a diagnostic tool in the early 1980s,' the expert stated. His stepdaughter claimed the technician never warmed McAllister to take off the necklace that led to his demise. 'While my mother was laying on the table, the technician left the room to get her husband to help her off the table,' step-daughter Adrienne Jones-McAllister wrote in a GoFundMe. 'He forgot to inform him to take the chain he was wearing from around his neck off when the magnet sucked him in,' she wrote.
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- Hamilton Spectator
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Newsweek
8 hours ago
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Wife Speaks Out After Husband Killed by MRI Machine
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The wife of a man who was killed after being sucked into an MRI machine has described how the tragic moment is still "pulsating in her brain." Newsweek called Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, Long Island, where the incident took place, on Tuesday, but the clinic had not yet opened for the day at the time of the call. The clinic told other news outlets it has no comment on the incident. What To Know Adrienne Jones-McAllister was at Nassau Open MRI for an MRI for her knee on July 16 when the accident took place. She told News 12 Long Island that she asked the technician to get her husband, Keith McAllister, 61, as she needed help getting out of the MRI machine. She said that the technician brought him into the MRI room, and her husband was wearing a 20-pound chain that he used for weight training. Keith McAllister and a stock image of an MRI machine. Keith McAllister and a stock image of an MRI machine. GoFundMe/Getty Images Jones-McAllister said that as her husband approached the machine, he was sucked into it. She described the moment she saw the machine "snatch him" as she screamed for the technician to "turn this damn thing off!" Jones-McAllister said that her husband suffered several heart attacks before "his whole body went limp in my arms." "I haven't been able to sleep, I'm barely eating," the visibly emotional widow said. "I just can't believe– I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing." "I loved him so much," she said. Jones-McAllister said she and her husband had visited the clinic before and that he had worn the chain there previously. "That was not the first time that guy has seen that chain. They had a conversation about it before," she said about the technician. Patients are typically asked to remove metal items before going near MRI machines because they generate powerful magnetic fields that can attract metal objects. According to a GoFundMe page created by Jones-McAllister's daughter for funeral expenses, McAllister "was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain." It says that he died the following day. The fundraiser had passed $8,000 by early Tuesday. What People Are Saying The family's GoFundMe page says: "Keith was a husband, a father, a stepfather, a grandfather, a brother, and an uncle. He was a friend to many."
