A 61-year-old man died after being pulled into an active MRI machine while wearing a heavy metal chain at a clinic last week, raising questions about safety protocols in the medical industry.
Keith McAllister, a resident of Long Island, was at Nassau Open MRI on July 16, accompanying his wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, who was undergoing a routine knee scan. According to local reports, Adrienne called out to her husband from the scanner table for help getting up. McAllister responded and came into the MRI room, still wearing a 20-pound weight-training chain around his neck.
As he entered the MRI suite, the machine’s powerful magnetic field instantly pulled McAllister and the large chain he was wearing toward it. The force reportedly caused severe trauma, triggering multiple heart attacks. McAllister passed away the following day at a local hospital, according to an update posted by Nassau County police.
Jones-McAllister recalled to News 12 Long Island how she watched her husband approach the MRI table when the machine suddenly pulled him in. “He went limp in my arms, and this is still pulsating in my brain,” she said.
A GoFundMe campaign launched in the aftermath claims McAllister remained attached to the machine for nearly an hour before the chain could be dislodged. Adrienne also claimed that the clinic had previously allowed Keith into the MRI area wearing the same chain without any apparent issues.
“That was not the first time that guy has seen that chain. They had a conversation about it before,” she told News 12. However, Jones-McAllister did not further clarify what the previous conversation entailed, such as whether the staff warned McAllister directly not to wear the chain in the clinic.
MRI machines generate extremely strong magnetic fields capable of turning everyday metal objects into deadly projectiles.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that proper screening is crucial to prevent such tragedies involving powerful imaging machines. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering also reported that MRI machines and their magnetic pull are strong enough “to fling a wheelchair across the room.”
Calls to Nassau Open MRI were not returned, and the clinic has not issued a public statement as of the time of this publication.
This is not the first MRI-related death in New York. In 2001, according to CBS, a 6-year-old boy was killed when an oxygen tank was pulled into an MRI chamber in Westchester County.