A 61-year-old man died after being pulled into an MRI machine by its magnetic force while wearing a heavy metal chain around his neck. The incident occurred at the Nassau Open MRI clinic in Westbury, Long Island, on 16 July.
Keith McAllister had accompanied his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, to the clinic for a scan on her knee. According to Adrienne, she called out to her husband for help getting up from the table, and the technician allowed him to enter the room while he wore a nearly 20lb (9kg) metal chain used for weight training.
Police said McAllister was sucked into the machine by its potent magnetic force, suffering a medical episode that left him in critical condition. He was pronounced dead a day later at a hospital. Adrienne told News 12 that her husband had several heart attacks after the incident, and she recalled seeing the machine snatch him and pull him in.
Adrienne said she begged the clinic to call for emergency help and turn off the machine, but Keith eventually went limp in her arms. A GoFundMe campaign claimed he was attached to the machine for almost an hour before the chain could be released.
Adrienne noted that they had visited the clinic before and that staff had previously seen the chain. The clinic declined to comment. The FDA warns that MRI machines create a strong magnetic field that can turn objects into projectiles, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering cautions that the forces can fling a wheelchair across a room.
This is not the first such death in New York; in 2001, six-year-old Michael Colombini died when an oxygen tank was pulled into an MRI chamber.
