Man dies in freak accident after being pulled into MRI by magnetic force
Image: IOL Ron AI
A routine MRI scan turned fatal for 61-year-old Keith McAllister, who died after being pulled into a magnetic imaging machine while wearing a 9kg metal neck chain.
The freak incident occurred at Nassau Open MRI in Long Island, New York, while his wife was undergoing a knee scan.
According to a GoFundMe post created by McAllister's stepdaughter, Samantha Bodden, the tragedy unfolded when an MRI technician asked McAllister to help his wife off the imaging table, but allegedly failed to instruct him to remove the chain.
As he stepped into the MRI room, the powerful magnetic field yanked him towards the machine, leaving him pinned for close to an hour.
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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,' wrote Bodden.
Despite desperate attempts by the technician and McAllister's wife to free him, they were unsuccessful.
Emergency services were called, but it was too late. McAllister reportedly suffered multiple heart attacks as a result of the incident and succumbed to his injuries.
MRI machines contain extremely strong magnets, and safety protocols require that all metal objects, including jewellery, implants, and even certain clothing items, can be removed before entering the scanning room. Metal objects not only pose a risk of being pulled toward the machine but can also heat up and cause burns.
While such accidents are extremely rare, they are not unprecedented.
In 2001, a 6-year-old boy died in a New York hospital after an MRI machine's magnet pulled in an oxygen tank, causing a fatal head injury.
More recently, in 2023, a man in India died under similar circumstances after entering an MRI room with a metal oxygen cylinder.
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