Man dies after being pulled into MRI machine while wearing metal chain: Police

abcnews.go.com Man dies after being pulled into MRI machine while wearing metal chain: Police

The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon at a medical building in Westbury, New York, according to the Nassau County Police Department.

A 61-year-old man who suffered critical injuries after being pulled into an MRI machine while wearing a metal chain has died, police said Friday.

The incident occurred Wednesday afternoon at a medical building in Westbury, New York, according to the Nassau County Police Department.

Officers responded to Nassau Open MRI following a 911 call and were informed that the man "entered an unauthorized Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) room while the scan was in progress," the police department said in a statement.

You're viewing a single thread.

54 comments

Pure gold will heat up according to my reading, but won't be pulled in.
What if he thought or told people it was pure gold and it would be fine but it was just a plated steel chain?
- Arrested development, S3E11
  George: ... The prosecution is going to want to have access to the hard drive, so I just want to make sure everything is nice and clean for them.
  Michael: What the hell is that thing?
  George: An electromagnet. Think of it as a giant delete key.
  ..
  Lucille enters. Her necklace is ripped from her and snaps to the electromagnet across the room.
  Lucille: That’s not a real gold necklace, is it?
  George: Well, it wasn’t really your 50th birthday.
  
  Happened in a physics course from my old teacher. A girl had a golden chain she got from her boyfriend and was sure it was pure gold, until that faithful outing to visit the nearby universities particle accelerator...
  
  which is extra dumb when you realise no jewellery is ever pure gold. It is 22K. Otherwise it cannot withstand daily wear and tear.
  
  "Pure gold" as in "not just gold plated something", of course. And 22k is actually rare for jewellry, most of it is 10, 14, and 18k. If you watch Sreetips, it seems to be distributed in an about ratio of 2:2:1.
- Had to bring my daughter for an MRI recently. They are very very clear about removing all metal.
  
  I had an MRI recently and while they were obviously very strict about no metal on/in my body while scanning, my husband was allowed to stay in the room wearing his metal framed glasses and metal belt buckle, it wasn't a problem. This makes me wonder how fucking big that chain was.
  
  Yeah very similar experience. I asked about the button on my jeans as the second person in the room and that was fine. He must have been very very close to the magnets.
  
  I had one a couple weeks ago. Where I went I had to be buzzed into a waiting room then buzzed into the MRI room itself. Without a card key or an escort there was no way for me to enter the room.
  And yeah, I was also asked more than once about having any metal on me.
  
  I wouldn't trust people to tell the truth. People are idiots. I hope they also use metal detectors.
  Wouldn't want a doctor or nurse getting a prince Albert to the eye because the patient was too embarrassed to mention it.
- the man “entered an unauthorized Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) room while the scan was in progress,”
  He didn't tell anybody anything. He wasn't supposed to be in there.
  My guess is that someone forgot to lock the door. My question is, why isn't it an electronic lock that prevents operation of the machine if it's not locked?
  
  why isn't it an electronic lock that prevents operation of the machine if it's not locked?
  Because that would throw the liability on the facility when the system inevitably failed, or was bypassed because the $1000 lock mechanism was preventing the $10m MRI from working.
  Much easier to slap up a couple of warning signs and tell people not to be dumb.
  
  I'm pretty sure that wouldn't protect their liability when everyone knows door locks exist.
  
  Okay, say there's an emergency with the patient being scanned. The people getting scanned are usually very sick.
  Say the patient has a heart attack, or can't breathe, or something malfunctioned and caught on fire.
  What happens if the door malfunctions? Or the key is dropped/misplaced? Or any similar scenario occurs that delays help when seconds count?
  
  You put a manual override on the electric lock. This is usually done in a way that the person triggering the override cannot also be the person opening the door. They can be well marked and obvious in operation that way as it would require at least two people.
  This should only be required in the event of an electric lock failure or some other kind of emergency where the electric lock has some other safety condition(s) that must be met before it will unlock that needs to be bypassed. It shouldn’t be needed on a regular basis.
  
  Sledgehammer
  
  Metal tho.
  
  why isn't it an electronic lock that prevents operation of the machine if it's not locked?
  Why not make it simpler and make it a magnetic lock that simply locks the door by being pulled towards the machine? (With a mechanical override so you can get in if you really want to and have the key.)
  
  Either:
  The door is too far to get pulled by the MRI, or it's such an intense force that you would lose a limb in the door.
  
  The magnet doesn't get turned off when not scanning

54 comments