A 61-year-old man has died after he was sucked into a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine at a medical centre while he was wearing a heavy metal necklace.
The man entered a room at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, on New York’s Long Island, without permission as the MRI machine was running, Nassau County Police Department said.
His wife told local media she had called him into the MRI room after her scan and his chain necklace caused him to be hurled towards the machine when he walked in.
Officials say the incident “resulted in a medical episode” and the man was later pronounced dead.
MRI machines use a strong magnetic field to produce detailed images.
Patients are typically asked to remove metal items and change out of their clothes before undergoing MRI scans or going near the machine.
“The male victim was wearing a large metallic chain around his neck causing him to be drawn into the machine, which resulted in a medical episode,” said Nassau County Police Department, which is investigating the incident.
Though police have not named the victim, Adrienne Jones-McAllister told local television station News 12 Long Island that it was her husband, Keith, who died.
“He waved goodbye to me and then his whole body went limp,” she said.
Ms Jones-McAllister said she was getting an MRI scan on her knee and asked her husband to come in to help her get up afterwards. She said he was wearing a 20lb (9kg) chain with a lock that he used for weight training.
“At that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI,” she said.
Ms Jones-McAllister said the visit on 16 July was not her and her husband’s first time at the MRI facility. It was also not the first time that the employee had seen her husband’s weight that he used for training, she said.
She claimed an employee and her husband previously “had a conversation about it before: ‘Oh that’s a big chain'”.
Ms Jones-McAllister said the technician tried to pull her husband away from the machine.
“I’m saying, ‘Could you turn off the machine?” she said. “Call 911. Do something. Turn this damn thing off!'”
The BBC has contacted Nassau Open MRI for comment.
According to the US Food and Drug Administration, MRI machines have magnetic fields that will attract magnetic objects of all sizes – keys, mobile phones and even oxygen tanks – which “may cause damage to the scanner or injury to the patient or medical professionals if those objects become projectiles”.
In 2001, a six-year-old boy died of a fractured skull at a New York City medical centre while undergoing an MRI exam after its powerful magnetic force propelled an oxygen tank across the room.
