The wife of a man who died after a horrifying MRI accident has spoken publicly about the moment it happened, and how she’s coping in the aftermath.
Adrienne Jones-McAllister was at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York, on July 16, undergoing a routine scan on her knee, when her husband, 61-year-old Kevin, was suddenly pulled into the machine by its powerful magnetic force.
“He went limp in my arms,” Jones-McAllister told News 12 Long Island. “And that moment is still pulsating in my brain.”
According to police, Kevin had entered the MRI room during the scan while wearing a heavy, metal chain around his neck. That chain, weighing roughly 20 pounds and worn regularly for weight training, triggered the machine’s magnetic field and caused him to be violently pulled toward it.
“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,” the Nassau County Police Department said in a statement.
Kevin suffered multiple heart attacks as a result of the incident. He was rushed to the hospital but died two days later from his injuries, according to reports.
Adrienne recalled that after her scan was complete, she asked a technician to bring her husband into the room to help her get up. Despite strict MRI safety protocols (patients are required to remove all metal before entering the scanning area) Kevin was allowed into the room with the chain still on.
“In that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in, and he hit the MRI,” Adrienne said. “I saw the machine snatch him.”
She and the technician tried desperately to pull him free, but the magnetic force was too strong. “I was yelling, ‘Could you turn off the machine? Call 911! Do something! Turn this damn thing off!’”
MRI machines use extremely powerful magnets to scan soft tissues and internal organs. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering explicitly warns that no metal or electronic objects should be brought into the MRI suite.
What makes this tragedy even more painful, Adrienne said, is that this wasn’t their first time at the facility, and staff were familiar with her husband’s chain. “They had a conversation about it before,” she claimed. “‘Oh, that’s a big chain,’ they said.”
Since Kevin’s death, Adrienne has struggled with grief and disbelief.
“I haven’t been able to sleep, I’m barely eating,” she said. “I just can’t believe it. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. He waved goodbye to me… and then his whole body went limp.”
The Nassau County Police Department has confirmed that an investigation is ongoing.
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