There is really only one rule for people hanging around MRI machines. Make sure you’ve absolutely, 100%, definitely removed all pieces of metal from your body before it gets turned on.
Yet another person has been killed after not removing all their metal near the massive mechanical magnets. This time, a man entered the room with the MRI machine sporting a massive 20-lb necklace, complete with a metal chain padlock.
The piece of jewelry was intended as a form of weight training. Keith McAllister, 61, often wore it in order to help with fitness. But when it came close to the MRI machine, it drew him in and eventually killed him.
Fatal Attraction
Keith wasn’t the person intended for the MRI machine. His wife, who had an issue with her knee, was having it scanned while he waited a safe distance away. According to his wife, Adrienne, the doctors had commented on the huge chain necklace before they switched on the MRI machine.
When the scanning was complete, Keith entered the room to help his wife up from the table. “At that instant,” his wife recalled, “the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI.” The massive piece of workout equipment had been attracted by the strong magnets.
His body was pulled against the magnets, forcing the life from him as his wife struggled to get him unstuck. “I said: ‘Could you turn off the machine, call 911, do something, turn this damn thing off!’” His wife recalled his final moments to News 12 Long Island: “He went limp in my arms.”
Eventually, the man was freed from the MRI and his chain necklace, but it was too late. The autopsy revealed that he suffered multiple heart attacks due to the shock of the incident. “He waved goodbye to me and then his whole body went limp,” his wife said, full of tears.
There have been numerous incidents of people approaching MRI machines with metal and dying. However, the worst has to be the woman who was turned into a “human railgun” after lying down for a scan with a metal buttplug in.