A man died last week after being pulled into an MRI machine by a “large metallic chain” police said he was wearing around his neck – highlighting the importance of checking for any metallic objects before going near the powerful magnets used in the medical imaging machines.
The 61-year-old died Thursday, a day after Nassau County police said he was pulled into the MRI machine at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York, on Long Island. The victim was wearing “a large metallic chain around his neck causing him to be drawn into the machine,” prompting an unspecified “medical episode,” police said in a news release.
The man’s entry to the room “while the scan was in progress” was not authorized, police said.
He was taken to a hospital in critical condition before he was declared dead the following day. The investigation is ongoing, police said.
Police have not identified the victim, but CNN affiliate News 12 Long Island reported his name was Keith McAllister, according to his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister. She told the station she was the one undergoing the MRI.
“He went limp in my arms,” Jones-McAllister said through tears.
A person who answered the phone at Nassau Open MRI on Sunday said it had no comment.
Used often for disease detection and diagnosis, MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging, according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The technology relies in part on powerful magnets to stimulate protons within a patient, who is placed inside the machine, allowing doctors to capture detailed images of the patient’s anatomy.
That strong magnetic field, however, emanates beyond the MRI machine, posing a threat to those who might be wearing metallic objects or have them implanted. The magnets exert “very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels, and other magnetizable objects,” the scientific institute notes, with enough strength “to fling a wheelchair across the room.”
Jones-McAllister was getting an MRI on her knee, she told News 12, and needed help getting up afterwards. She said she asked the MRI technician to retrieve her husband for assistance.
“I yelled out Keith’s name, ‘Keith, Keith, come help me up,’” Jones-McAllister said. According to News 12, Jones-McAllister said her husband was wearing around his neck a 20-pound chain with a large lock he used for weight training.
“At that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI,” Jones-McAllister said. She said she and the technician tried to pry her husband away from the machine.
“I’m saying, ‘Could you turn off the machine? Call 911. Do something. Turn this damn thing off!’”
Because of the risks posed by an MRI machine’s magnetic field, patients are urged to notify their doctors about any medical implants prior to an MRI, in case they contain any metallic materials. Pacemakers, insulin pumps and cochlear implants are all examples of implants that the NIBIB says should under no circumstances enter an MRI machine.
But items outside the machine pose risks as well, as last week’s tragedy in Westbury demonstrated. Anything magnetic – from something as small as keys, to something as large (or larger) than an oxygen tank – can become a projectile, threatening the safety of anyone nearby.
“Metal in a room that has the magnet will fly across the room to the scanner, to this large magnet, and will really hit anything in its way,” Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist, told CNN in 2011.
“So within radiology training, one learns very early that that’s not OK, that you can’t have external metal in the room, and you can’t have metal in the patient,” she said. “That could lead to a problem.”
These accidents have happened in the past: In 2001, a 6-year-old boy was killed during an MRI at a hospital in Valhalla, New York, after a metal oxygen tank flew across the room when the machine’s electromagnet turned on.
The magnetized tank struck the child, who died of blunt force trauma injuries.
These events are rare, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Still, “(c)areful screening of people and objects entering the MR environment is critical to ensure nothing enters the magnet area that may become a projectile,” the agency says.
