https://www.yahoo.com/news/man...chain-125505856.html



A man who wore a large weight-training chain around his neck and approached his wife while a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine scanned her knee at a clinic in New York died after the device forcefully pulled him, according to police and media reports.

Keith McAllister, 61, was killed at the Nassau Open MRI clinic in Westbury, Long Island, after he accompanied his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, there on 16 July.

Adrienne told the local outlet News 12 Long Island that an MRI machine there was scanning her knee when she called out to her husband, “Keith, come help me up” from the table. The technician operating the machine – which looks like a long, narrow tube with openings on each end – then allowed Keith to walk in while he wore a nearly 20lb (9kg) metal chain that he used for weight training.

Police in Nassau county, New York, said Keith was then sucked into the device by its potent magnetic force. He endured “a medical episode” at that point which left him in critical condition at a hospital, and he was pronounced dead a day later, police said.

Adrienne told News 12 that her late husband had suffered several heart attacks after the incident with the MRI machine and before his death. She recalled, through tears, “seeing the machine snatch him and pull him into the machine”.

She said she implored for the clinic to call for emergency help and, referring to the machine, to “turn this damn thing off!”

But eventually Keith “went limp in my arms”, Adrienne recounted. “This is still pulsating in my brain.”

A GoFundMe campaign since launched to support Adrienne asserted that Keith “was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain from the machine”.

Adrienne told News 12 that she and her husband had previously been to Nassau Open MRI, and he had worn his weight-training chain there before.

“This was not the first time that guy [had] seen that chain,” Adrienne said to the station. “They had a conversation about it before.”

A person who picked up a phone call to Nassau Open MRI on Monday said the facility had no comment.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates MRI safety and warns that scans with the technology can create a “strong, static magnetic field” that poses physical hazards. The agency says that “careful screening of people and objects entering the MRI environment is critical to ensure nothing enters the magnet area that may become a projectile” and dangerous to anyone nearby.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, meanwhile, cautions that MRI machines exerts “very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels and other magnetizable objects” and have the strength “to fling a wheelchair across the room”.

McAllister was not the first person killed by an MRI machine in New York. In 2001, Michael Colombini, 6, died when an oxygen tank flew into an MRI chamber that he was in, having been pulled in by the machine at a medical center in Westchester county.

My wife told me about this story. She might have a crap knee but she’s about to make a small fortune off these idiots. (yes he was an idiot too) Having had dozens of these exams it is unbelievable if it happened the way it is described.

That tech was brain dead or asleep.

Yeah, there sure seems to be more to this story.

Yo Adrienne, I did it!

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A GoFundMe campaign since launched to support Adrienne asserted that Keith “was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain from the machine”.

Gotta call BS on this. Machines like this have emergency cutoff switches.

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Originally posted by TomV:
Yeah, there sure seems to be more to this story.

Links?

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Gotta call BS on this. Machines like this have emergency cutoff switches.

The problem with MRI machines is that shutting them off does not stop the magnetism.

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Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Machines like this ....

Which class of machines are referring to specifically?

There are quench buttons to demagnetize in an emergency. But it’s costly to get restarted. I’d speculate the technologist stepped away, allowing access to the MRI room door of an unscreened individual, and not there to hit the quench button.

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Originally posted by pedropcola:
My wife told me about this story. She might have a crap knee but she’s about to make a small fortune off these idiots. (yes he was an idiot too) Having had dozens of these exams it is unbelievable if it happened the way it is described.

That tech was brain dead or asleep.

I had an MRI a couple of years ago, my doctor prescribed a cardiac/arterial scan as a precaution due to my family history (scans proved to be just fine). It was my first one and it was a weird experience, I was in the tube for quite awhile. But the tech was very good, he asked about any metal implants, pacemaker, etc. I undressed and wore a gown and underwear only, no watch, no rings, eyeglasses, etc. The story reeks of malpractice, just gross incompetent service.

The family will have their choice of lawyers, I’m sure they are lining up.

I helped develop one of the first MRI machines at GE Medical Systems in the 80's.The magnetic field is 30,000x stronger than the Earths magnetic field. I am surprised that the chain didn't decapitate him. Hospital and Tech will be sued into oblivion.

Darwin strikes again.

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There are quench buttons to demagnetize in an emergency. But it’s costly to get restarted.

Potentially very costly, since the rapid heating of coils can damage them, irreparably. Still better than killing someone and should have happened instead of fiddling around trying to pull the man loose. What a shitshow all around.

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Hospital and Tech will be sued into oblivion.

It's a freestanding center, doesn't seem to be affiliated with any other system. I suspect it's thinly capitalized and it is incorporated, so insurance will pay and owners likely walk.

Now they may have personal guarantee on MRI lease, etc. but that will be way less than the wrongful death suit.

A lot of unsubstantiated information, obviously the patient is upset and her understanding of what happened may or may not be accurate.

There may be releases signed by her, signs warning no entrance without permission, no metal objects etc. Likely a settlement will happen, how much depends on the insurance and assets of the company.

Like anything reported, we don't get all the information.

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drienne told the local outlet News 12 Long Island that an MRI machine there was scanning her knee when she called out to her husband, “Keith, come help me up” from the table.

I call bullshit. I've had approx 10 of these things in 4 different states and I've even hit the button to call the tech. No way anybody other than the technician hears this and that's only because it's an intercom.

I’ve had several MRIs, no one was in the room while it was running. And the tech could see me thru a window. And the door was locked.

When I was a cop and a prisoner had to have an MRI, I waited outside with the tech running the machine. No one could get into the room as the door is locked.

I’m sure there’s something being left out in the story

1. The door should have been code locked with only staff knowing the code

2. He should have been screened before entering the clinical space and not allowed to wear those items into Zone 3 (area before entering the scan room which is Zone 4 )

3. Only clinicians should be allowed to assist patients. Don’t care if it was his wife. Would this have been allowed in a ER or OR?  NO

Don’t see how anyone could get in but the tech and the patient. But obviously, he got in…and out. Eventually.

This entire clusterfuck seems to be due to stupidity all around. First is this idiot being anywhere—anywhere in the vicinity of an MRI with a 20 lb. Iron chain around your neck. Second is the wife yelling for him to come help her. Third is whoever was responsible for the MRI allowing this to happen. As noted above, MRI’s are supposed to be in a sanitized area where ferrous metals cannot come into the vicinity of the magnet.