A man who died after being pulled into an MRI machine in New York was wearing a large weight-training chain around his neck, his wife has said.
Keith McAllister, 61, entered a room at the Nassau Open MRI clinic while a scan of his wife’s knee was under way.
The machine’s strong magnetic force drew him in by the 9kg metal chain around his neck, according to Nassau County Police.
His wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, said she had called out to her husband to help her off the table.
“I yelled out Keith’s name, [shouting] Keith, come help me up,” she said in an interview with News 12 Long Island.
She said her husband entered the room wearing the chain, which he uses for weight training.
“I saw the machine snatch him around and pull him into the machine,” Ms Jones-McAllister said as tears streamed down her face. “He died, he lost, he went limp in my arms.”
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Police said that the accident last Wednesday “resulted in a medical episode” and left Mr McAllister in a critical condition in hospital.
Ms Jones-McAllister said her husband had suffered a series of heart attacks after he was freed from the MRI machine. He was later pronounced dead.
MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The machines use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to create detailed images of the inside of the body.
Due to the magnetic fields, “very powerful forces” are exerted on objects made of iron, some steels, and other magnetic materials, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering says.
It says the forces are “strong enough to fling a wheelchair across the room”.
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Sky News’ US partner network NBC New York reported that MRI accidents are rare but can be fatal.
It is not the first time someone has been killed by an MRI machine in New York.
In 2001, six-year-old Michael Colombini died at the Westchester Medical Centre when an oxygen tank flew into the chamber, drawn in by the MRI’s 10-ton electromagnet.
