A man was tragically sucked into an MRI machine while his wife was getting scanned in the active chamber last Thursday. It was a tragic freak accident that should have been prevented.
Keith McAllister, 61, accompanied his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, to her MRI appointment at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York.
According to local police report, McAllister was wearing, “a large metallic chain around his neck causing him to be drawn into the machine,” which then prompted a medical emergency. He had entered the room, “while the scan was in progress,” the report adds.
Jones-McAllister says she thought the MRI on her knee was finished so she called for her husband to help her to her feet — he was in another room. The problem is, he was wearing a 20-pound chain with a large lock. It’s being described as a weight training device. The instant he entered the room, “the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI.”
Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist, told CNN in 2011. “Metal in a room that has the magnet will fly across the room to the scanner, to this large magnet, and will really hit anything in its way.”
Not to make light of a tragedy, but earlier this year Final Destination: Bloodlines had a similar scene. [Spoilers Ahead].
In it, Erik and Bobby, played by Richard Harmon and Owen Patrick Joyner respectively, accidentally trigger an MRI machine and both are killed by its magnetic force. Erik, because of his piercings, is pulled into it and subsequently folded in half through the round portal, while Bobby is impaled by a vending machine’s loose spiral dispensing spring.
Many fans thought this kill was unrealistic. It was perhaps overly dramatized; however, it is plausable as seen in the real-life New York tragedy.
We at iHorror send our condolences to the McAllister family.
Cover image used courtesy of The Nightly.
