A 61-year-old man in New York has died after he was sucked into a magnetic resonance imaging machine this week, Nassau County police said Friday.
The man was wearing a large metal chain and entered a room without authorization as the MRI machine, which uses a strong magnetic field, was running at a medical office in Westbury on Wednesday afternoon, police said.
The metal necklace caused him “to be drawn into the machine which resulted in a medical episode,” police said, noting the incident occurred around 4:30 p.m.
He was pronounced dead from his injuries at a hospital at 2:36 p.m. Thursday, police said in Friday’s update.
Safety rules surrounding MRI machines require that people bring nothing metal into the procedure room. Patients are typically required to change out of clothes before entering and screened about any implants or metal in their bodies.
“Careful screening of people and objects entering the MR environment is critical to ensure nothing enters the magnet area that may become a projectile,” the Food and Drug Administration says on its website about safety practices surrounding magnetic resonance.
The MRI office where the incident occurred, Nassau Open MRI, is in Westbury, a community of around 15,000 in Nassau County on Long Island.
