RIP Keith McAllister. Credit: GoFundMe
A 61-year-old man died after being pulled into an MRI machine in New York while wearing a 9kg metal chain used for weight training, police have confirmed.
Keith McAllister had entered the MRI room at the Nassau Open MRI clinic in Westbury, Long Island, on July 16, while his wife was undergoing a scan. According to The Guardian, his wife Adrienne Jones-McAllister had called out for help from the table, prompting him to enter the room still wearing the heavy chain.
“Keith, come help me up,” she recalled telling him, as quoted by News 12 Long Island.
McAllister was then “sucked into the device by its potent magnetic force,” according to Nassau County Police. His wife said she watched the machine “snatch him around and pull him in,” adding tearfully, “He died, he lost, he went limp in my arms.”
Police said the incident triggered a “medical episode,” and McAllister suffered multiple heart attacks before being pronounced dead in hospital, July 17.
Chain had been worn to previous MRI scans, wife claims
In an emotional interview, Adrienne said this wasn’t the first time her husband had accompanied her to the clinic wearing the chain.
She also criticised the clinic’s response, saying she had begged staff to “turn this damn thing off” and call for emergency assistance.
A GoFundMe campaign set up for the family claims Keith remained attached to the machine for nearly an hour before the chain could be removed.
According to The Guardian, a person who answered the phone at the Nassau Open MRI clinic declined to comment on the incident.
MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines generate powerful magnetic fields and radio waves to scan the inside of the body. But according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they can also create “strong, static magnetic fields” that pose significant physical hazards if proper screening is not followed.
The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering adds that MRIs can exert “very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels and other magnetisable objects” – strong enough “to fling a wheelchair across the room.”
Not the first fatal MRI incident
This is not the first time a person has died due to metal objects being pulled into an MRI machine. In 2001, six-year-old Michael Colombini was killed at Westchester Medical Center when an oxygen tank was accidentally left in the room and was sucked into the scanner during his procedure.
While MRI-related deaths are rare, experts and families are now questioning how this kind of mistake could happen – especially if, as Adrienne claims, staff had previously allowed her husband to wear the same chain inside the facility.
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