A man has died after being pulled into an MRI machine by the metal chain he was wearing around his neck for weight training. Keith McAllister, 61, was accompanying his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, to the Nassau Open MRI clinic in Westbury, Long Island, on 16 July when the incident occurred.
According to police in Nassau County, New York, McAllister entered the scanning room while wearing a chain weighing nearly 20lb (9kg). As his wife was being scanned, she called out for help, and the technician allowed him to approach. The machine's powerful magnetic force then sucked McAllister into the device, causing a 'medical episode' that left him critically injured.
McAllister was taken to hospital, where he suffered several heart attacks and was pronounced dead a day later. His wife told News 12 Long Island that she saw 'the machine snatch him and pull him into the machine' and pleaded for staff to 'turn this damn thing off'. She said he remained attached to the machine for almost an hour before the chain could be removed.
Mrs Jones-McAllister revealed that the couple had visited the same clinic before, and staff had previously seen her husband wearing the weight-training chain. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to support her. The clinic declined to comment when contacted.
The US Food and Drug Administration warns that MRI machines produce a strong magnetic field that can turn metal objects into projectiles. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering notes that the force is strong enough to 'fling a wheelchair across the room'. In 2001, a six-year-old boy died in New York after an oxygen tank was pulled into an MRI scanner.
