A 61-year-old man who was wearing a 20-pound chain used for weight training when he was sucked into an MRI scanner while attempting to help his wife off the machine last week has died, according to law enforcement and multiple media reports.
The tragic incident unfolded on July 16 at around 4:30 p.m. at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, N.Y., according to reporting from the New York Times.
The victim, identified by his wife as Keith McAllister, was at the imaging center to assist her while she received an MRI on her knee.
In an interview with News12 Long Island, Adrienne Jones-McAllister said she called for her husband to help her, presumably get off the table, after her MRI was completed. She told the outlet that the MRI technician went to get her husband and despite the heavy chain around his neck, which they had reportedly been laughing and talking about prior to the imaging procedure, let him into the room where she was waiting.
“In that instant, the machine twist him around, pulled him in and he hit the MRI,” Jones-McAllister told News12.
She and the technician attempted to pull McAllister out of the machine but said that it was impossible.
“I said, ‘Could you turn off the machine, call 911, do something! Turn this damn thing off!” Jones-McAllister explained.
Magnetic resonance imaging machines are equipped with magnets and radio frequency currents that create anatomical images. The magnetic force used during the procedure is so strong, according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging, it can pull a wheelchair across the room.
Patients getting an MRI are routinely told to remove any and all jewelry and piercings before the procedure, while patients with implants that contain iron are urged to never undergo an MRI.
McAllister was rushed to the hospital where his wife says he suffered several heart attacks and died the following day just after 2:30 p.m.
“He went limp in my arms, and this is still pulsating in my brain,” she told News12.
Officials with the Nassau County Police Department, according to The Times, are continuing to investigate what appears to be an awful accident.
As for Nassau Open MRI, the center has yet to respond to multiple requests for comment from both The Times and News12.
