A 61-year-old man, wearing a heavy metal collar, died after being sucked into a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine at Nassau Open MRI medical center in Westbury, Long Island, New York, when he entered the room where the medical device was operating without permission, said the Nassau County Police Department, as reported by the BBC.
Authorities state that it was "a medical accident" and that the man was transported to the hospital, where he passed away. Magnetic resonance machines use a powerful magnetic field to produce detailed images.
Patients are generally asked to remove metal items and change clothes before undergoing an MRI or approaching the machine.
"The man was wearing a large metal chain around his neck, which caused him to be dragged into the machine in an incident classified as a medical accident," said the Nassau County Police Department, which is investigating the incident.
Although the police have not named the victim, Adrienne Jones-McAllister told local TV 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 tearfully.
Adrienne Jones-McAllister told the media that she was having a knee MRI and asked her husband to help her get up. She said he was wearing a 9 kg chain with a lock that he used for weight training.
"At that moment, the machine turned him, pulled him in, and he reached the MRI," she said.
The woman said the technician had tried to pull her husband away from the machine.
"I tell them: 'Could you turn off the machine?'" she explained on TV. "Call 911. Do something. Turn off this damn machine!"
The BBC has reached out to Nassau Open MRI for comments.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, MRI machines have magnetic fields that attract magnetic objects of all sizes (keys, mobile phones, and even oxygen tanks) that "can cause damage to the scanner or injuries to the patient or medical professionals if those objects become projectiles."
In 2001, a six-year-old child died from a skull fracture at a medical center in New York City while undergoing an MRI exam after its powerful magnetic force propelled an oxygen tank across the room.