Expert outlines grim reality of MRI's dangers after man with 20-pound chain dies in machine mishap: ‘Snap his neck'
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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
14 hours ago
- Medscape
Transoral Ultrasound Outperforms MRI in Cancer Detection
TOPLINE: A trial including 162 patients showed that surgeon-performed transoral/transcervical ultrasonography (USG) achieved a diagnostic accuracy of 86%, outperforming clinical examination and MRI (68% and 76%, respectively), in detecting oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC). METHODOLOGY: This prospective, multicentre diagnostic clinical trial included 162 participants with suspected OPSCC (median age, 63 years; 35% women) in Denmark from 2023 to 2024. After clinical examination, participants underwent transoral and transcervical USG performed by surgeons, followed by blinded cross-sectional MRI evaluation. Transoral USG involves using small high-frequency ultrasound probes placed directly onto the oropharyngeal mucosa, which produce higher-resolution images than traditional cross-sectional imaging. Researchers compared accuracies of detecting OPSCC between clinical examination, USG, and MRI, with final histopathologic results and T staging being used as reference standards. TAKEAWAY: A total of 65% of participants were diagnosed with oropharyngeal tumours and 35% were diagnosed without those. USG achieved significantly higher overall accuracy (86%) than clinical examination (68%; odds ratio [OR], 0.31; 95% CI, 0.18-0.52) and MRI (76%; OR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.28-0.82) in diagnosing OPSCC. Among patients without tumours, USG demonstrated superior specificity than clinical examination and MRI (79% vs 41% and 46%, respectively), while maintaining comparable sensitivity (90% vs 82% and 92%, respectively). Grouping of surgeons on the basis of their experience as 0-10, 10-20, and ≥ 20 cases yielded diagnostic accuracies of 80%, 79%, and 87%, respectively. Surgeons rated higher image quality in 45% vs 17% of OPSCC cases with transoral vs transcervical USG. IN PRACTICE: "Transoral ultrasonography was well tolerated and can be performed as an extension of the clinical examination to improve diagnostic evaluation and to inform biopsy procedures," the authors wrote. "Transoral ultrasonography may have a role in identifying early-stage OPSCCs and improving patient selection for transoral robotic surgery," they added. SOURCE: This study was led by Martin Garset-Zamani, MD, PhD, Copenhagen University Hospital-Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark. It was published online on July 17, 2025, in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. LIMITATIONS: This study was conducted in tertiary centres with specialised head and neck surgeons experienced in USG, which may have limited generalisability. Considering inconclusive cases as positive may have led to overdiagnosis, especially in patients with asymmetric tonsils. Additional limitations included the absence of a true reference standard for T staging. DISCLOSURES: This study was supported by a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. One author reported having a patent pending for a 3D USG imaging device at Rigshospitalet. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
USA Today
a day ago
- USA Today
Family of man sucked into MRI machine speaks on 'heartbreaking incident'
"He was a friend to many," Keith McAllister's stepdaughter said. The family of a man who died after being sucked into an MRI machine by a large metallic chain around his neck has spoken out. Keith McAllister, 61, was "tragically killed" on July 16 when he went to visit a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) medical facility in Westbury, New York, according to the Nassau County Police Department and a GoFundMe started by the man's family. McAllister succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital on July 17 at 2:36 p.m., according to police. Family issues statement on tragic incident The McAllister family's attorney, Michael Lauterborn, shared a statement with USA TODAY on Thursday, July 24. "The McAllister family and their friends are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Mr. Keith McAllister, who passed away following a preventable incident at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York," the statement reads. "We ask the public and friends to keep Mr. McAllister's wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, and the entire family in their thoughts and prayers during this profoundly difficult time. The family is truly grateful for the outpouring of heartfelt condolences received from the community and from across the country." According to the family's statement, they and their attorneys are "ensuring that all facts surrounding this incident" are being investigated by police and the New York State Department of Health. "This heartbreaking incident highlights the critical importance of safety protocols in medical imaging facilities," the statement continues. "The family and our legal team are dedicated to assisting the appropriate authorities in their investigation and in efforts to ensure accountability and prevent similar tragedies in the future." Who was Keith McAllister? The GoFundMe created by McAllister's stepdaughter, Samantha Bodden, says he was "a husband, a father, a stepfather, a grandfather, a brother and an uncle." "He was a friend to many," Bodden wrote on the fundraiser page. According to Bodden, her mother was lying on the table for the MRI when the technician left the room to get McAllister to help get her up. During this moment, the technician allegedly forgot to tell McAllister to remove the chain around his neck, his stepdaughter wrote. "My mother and the tech tried for several minutes to release him before the police were called," Bodden wrote. "He was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain from the machine." McAllister died after suffering several heart attacks following the incident, according to his stepdaughter. Now, the family is asking for donations to bury him, she added. As of Thursday, July 24, the family has received over $11,000 in donations, only about a $1,000 shy of the GoFundMe's goal of $12,000. Adrienne Jones-McAllister saw MRI machine 'snatch' husband McAllister's wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, told News 12 Long Island that she recalled her husband walking toward the MRI table and seeing the machine "snatch him." "He went limp in my arms, and this is still pulsating in my brain," she said, per the TV station. Jones-McAllister said she had an MRI on her knee and needed help getting up from the table, according to News 12 Long Island. Her husband came into the room wearing the 20-pound chain that he wears for weight training purposes, she told the TV station. "That was not the first time that guy has seen that chain. They had a conversation about it before," Jones-McAllister said about the MRI technician's prior knowledge of her husband's chain. Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund and Mike Snider, USA TODAY Jonathan Limehouse covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at JLimehouse@
Newsweek
a day ago
- Newsweek
US Birth Rate Plunges to New Low — CDC
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 United States' total fertility rate fell to a record low in 2024, dipping below 1.6 children per woman, according to new federal data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This marks a significant demographic milestone for a country that once stood apart among developed nations for maintaining a replacement-level birth rate of around 2.1 children per woman. The U.S. fertility rate, once buoyed by post-World War II baby booms and comparatively high birth rates among younger women, has been steadily declining for nearly two decades. Many women are delaying motherhood or opting out of having children altogether — a trend now bringing American fertility rates closer to those of Western Europe. World Bank data confirms this alignment with long-standing European demographic patterns. The toes of a baby are seen at a hospital in McAllen, Texas, on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. The toes of a baby are seen at a hospital in McAllen, Texas, on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. Associated Press Despite concern in some political circles, experts suggest the falling birth rate reflects broader cultural and economic shifts, rather than an imminent population crisis. "We're seeing this as part of an ongoing process of fertility delay," said Leslie Root, a fertility and population policy researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. "We know that the U.S. population is still growing, and we still have a natural increase — more births than deaths." Nevertheless, declining fertility has captured the attention of policymakers. In response to the trend, the Trump administration has advocated for several pro-natal measures, including an executive order aimed at expanding access to and reducing the cost of in vitro fertilization. The administration has also floated the idea of "baby bonuses" to incentivize family growth. But critics argue that these proposals are unlikely to reverse the trend without addressing deeper structural issues. Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina, said many young people are simply not ready to start families due to financial uncertainty, lack of support systems, and late marriages. "Worry is not a good moment to have kids," she explained. "And that's why birth rates in most age groups are not improving." Asked about the administration's initiatives, Guzzo was skeptical: "The things that they are doing are really symbolic and not likely to budge things for real Americans." She emphasized that lasting change would require more comprehensive policies, such as paid parental leave and affordable child care. The CDC's updated figures for 2024 show that the total fertility rate dropped from 1.621 in 2023 to 1.599. That statistic is derived from a more detailed analysis of birth certificates and replaced earlier provisional estimates. Interestingly, the new report also shows a 1% increase in overall births — roughly 33,000 more babies — compared to 2023, bringing the total to just over 3.6 million. However, this does not reflect a higher birth rate. The CDC clarified that the discrepancy stemmed from recalculated population estimates, which now account for an increase in women of childbearing age due to immigration. "That's plausible," Root said. "As the total population of women of childbearing age grew due to immigration, it offset small increases in births to women in those age groups." Ultimately, both experts agree the U.S. faces a complex demographic shift shaped by economics, policy, and evolving personal choices. This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
