Newser- A freak accident involving an MRI machine killed a man in a hospital in Mumbai, India. The details are harrowing: Rajesh Maru, 32, had been in the MRI room with a female relative who was preparing to undergo a scan, reports News18. The fatal mistake: He was holding the woman’s metal oxygen canister. Because MRI machines use extremely powerful magnets, no such metal objects can be in the room when one is powered up, explains the Hindustan Times. Police say that Maru was sucked toward the cylinder, and the arm holding the oxygen canister became trapped and, by some accounts, mangled. As attendants tried furiously to free him, Maru inhaled lethal amounts of liquid oxygen that had begun leaking from the canister he’d been holding, according to an autopsy.more
26 Comments on No Metal in the MRI Room!
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Crap article. You don’t just switch on an mri machine.
There are signs everywhere about all metal objects
Even Terminators are aware of this.
When interviewed, Rajesh Maru’s sister, Kobayashi, said that once the MRI machine was activated her brother was in a no-win situation.
I can’t help but wonder how many other readers will catch Vietvet’s reference?
I never worked on MRI machines myself. Only assisted my coworkers who did work on them a few times. They once had a service call about a swivel chair on wheels that got sucked across the room into the bore of the scanner. They had a heck of a time pulling it away. Luckily it was to large to fit inside.
The funniest story was from when MRI machines were first being installed nationwide. A local service guy the first time he had to recharge the liquid helium himself with out assistance from a more experienced guy. He screwed it up completely. Fog filled the room setting off the fire alarms. He and his untrained assistant were on top of the machine trying to get it under control. When the fog finally cleared and they could see through the window into the control room they were surprised to see it filled with firemen. Who also hadn’t a clue what to do. They only knew they couldn’t enter the room with all the metal bits they carried.
this is why God has as such a hard time bringing man to salvation.
I worked at a major NE O-Ho-Ho medical center in the main lab for 25 years until I retired last April. We had yearly on-line courses and tests regarding all sorts of things we needed to know while working there. Being able to work in an MRI room was one of them, even if you were not employed by that department. It was stressed throughout the course and the test that you DO NOT TAKE metal objects into the MRI room! PERIOD!!! This was emphasized again and again. No carts, O2 tanks, guerneys, etc. AT ALL!! To top it off, as Reboot states, you just don’t turn off an MRI. It takes a long time to shut down and a long time to reach the point of operation when turned on. The stupidity in this story is almost overwhelming!
Great observation, Vietvet!
Is it wrong that I laughed at this story?
He’s dead, Vietvet!
There is no liquid O2 in a portable metal oxygen container. It’s just pressurized gas.
So many baffling science questions in just one simple story.
Rod Serling voice: “This… is Millenial journalism.”
Apparently in India, invalid portable oxygen tanks contain 1950s rocket fuel, pure liquid oxygen. Must be massive. And weigh a ton.
And MRI machines must involve giant arms and pistons and huge open gears and crushers to mangle limbs. Who knew?
@Vietvet, maybe some cocky young Cadet could be found to rewrite the program for these Indian MRI machines to make the whole experience more survivable.
😀
Leaking “liquid oxygen” fumes?
MRIs that “suck you in” like a planet-killing Doomsday Machine?
Indian hospitals are even scarier than I thought.
This had nothing to do with a machine being switched on when metal was in the room; MR magnets are pretty much always powered up. Some idiot brought something into the room he shouldn’t have. Any ferrous metal in an MR room will immediately and rapidly assume a position right in the middle of the bore. You know, where the patient is.
No liquid oxygen, but you do get a lot of liquid helium vented very rapidly during emergency shutdown of the superconducting magnet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOUJP5dFEg
This was not a freak accident, it’s a well known danger of this technology. That’s why they have ALL THOSE SIGNS, and why anyone who ever gets near one is (or should be anyway) trained, trained, and trained again in why you don’t do what this bonehead did.
To borrow from Jeff Cooper:
1. ALL MRI MAGNETS ARE ALWAYS ENERGIZED
And don’t forget any metal INSIDE your body. I’d hate to see what would happen to a person in the room with a hip or knee replacement.
@Claudia – Implanted metal, including prosthetics, are made from non-magnetic naterial. Titanium, frequently. I’ve got a small plate and a couple of screws in my neck from a spinal fusion, as well as a left total knee replacement. I have lots of experience with MRI machines and have no problem with my metallic components.
No wonder my watch stopped during my MRI.
My phone went dead in the middle of a call, too. 🙁
people do not use liquid oxygen tanks for assisted breathing. they are usually for lab. work experimental work etc.. they can be small, size of a office waste paper basket and they are not heavy but they are made of stainless steel so not that magnetic.
I was in the tube for pictures of my entire left side (I’m all right now. LOLs) and I somehow left a penny in my pants pocket. OMG. Every time the scanner got to my hip area, the penny would vibrate and I thought it was going to cut through my leg. I was convinced the penny was going to fly out and ricochet across the tube. When I got out, I dropped my pants to make sure I wasn’t bleeding from my leg, my ass, my… where ever.
I had to has a brain scan wunct.
I axt the doctor what he found, and my to my R*O*L*A*I*D*S, he said “nuthin.”
Viet Vet wins the day.
He should have reprogrammed the computer if he didn’t like to lose.
First world technology, meet turd-world mentality.
Funny they don’t seem to have so much trouble with cell phones…..
Stupid I was, yes. I got rid of all metal objects on my person. Wore yoga pants, so no metal rivets.
After the MRI and I got off the table that moved into the MRI, the tech ripped into me something fierce. I totally forgot that I had a lone spare car door key in my pocket. Fortunately it fell out of my pocket and onto the outer rails when I first laid down on the table.
He picked up the key and threw it into the MRI and to my horror saw how it could have been driven into my person had it not fallen out. I thank my guardian angel for protecting this idiot.
My guess is that tech from that time on made everyone check their pockets in front of him before laying down.
You know the metal plate in my head Clark?
Well I had to get it removed cus everytime Catherine rev’d up the microwave, I’d piss my pants and forget who I was for a half hour or so…
This is what you get when you provide first-world technology to a third-world.