Lip Keith McAlister. Credit: GoFundMe
The 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 confirmed.
Keith McAllister entered the MRI room at the Nassau Open MRI Clinic in Westbury, Long Island on July 16th, where his wife was undergoing a scan. According to Guardianhis wife, Adrian Jones McAllister, called out to the table for help, urged him to enter the room wearing a still heavy chain.
“Keith, come and help me,” she recalls telling him as she quoted him. News 12 Long Island.
McAllister later said that “were drawn into the device by a powerful magnet.” Nassau County Police. His wife said that she saw the machine “snatched around him and pulled him out” and said, “He’s dead, he lost, he stepped into my arms.”
Police said the incident caused a “medical episode” and that McAllister suffered multiple heart attacks before being declared dead in the hospital on July 17th.
The chain was worn during previous MRI scans, the wife claims
In an emotional interview, Adrian said this wasn’t the first time she had her accompany her to a clinic where her husband was wearing a chain.
She also criticized the clinic’s response and said she asked staff to “turn this off” and seek emergency assistance.
a GOFUNDME Campaign Set up for the family, Keith remained attached to the machine before the chain could be removed.
According to Guardianwho answered the call at the Nassau Open MRI clinic declined to comment on the incident.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines scan the body by generating powerful magnetic fields and radio waves. However, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), if proper screening is not followed, it can also create “strong static magnetic fields” that pose serious physical dangers.
The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering adds that MRI can “exploit extremely powerful forces on iron objects, some steels, and other magnetic objects.”
Not the first fatal MRI incident
This is not the first time a person has died because a metal object was drawn into an MRI machine. In 2001, 6-year-old Michael Columbini was killed at Westchester Medical Center when an oxygen tank was accidentally left in the room and sucked into a scanner during the procedure.
MRI-related deaths are rare, but experts and families are now questioning how this type of mistake can happen. Especially if, as Adrienne argues, staff previously allowed her husband to wear the same chain inside the facility.
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