A man attending to an elderly patient died after getting sucked into an MRI machine at a hospital in India. The victim walked into the MRI room with an oxygen cylinder after allegedly being advised by the hospital staff it was safe to do so.
The family members of 32-year-old Rajesh Maru say it’s a case of “massive negligence” claiming the machine was switched on while it was supposed to have been off.
Mr Maru died when he took an elderly relative for an MRI scan at a hospital in Mumbai and a ward boy allegedly told him it was safe to carry an oxygen cylinder inside the room.
"Upon reaching the MRI section, we were asked by an attendant to remove all metallic objects such as belts, wallets and pins," Harish Solanki, a relative who was present at the time of the incident said, but added that the ward boy who was wheeling the patient into the MRI room insisted that Mr Maru carried the cylinder inside the room.
"We hesitated and my niece Priyanka even mentioned that the cylinder was metallic. But the ward boy said the machine wasn't on,” he told NDTV.
He said Mr Maru was dragged into the machine along with the oxygen cylinder, causing his hand to get stuck in it.
Mr Solanki said, he managed to pull Mr Maru out of the machine with help from the ward boy, but his body was swollen and he was bleeding heavily. Mr Maru was rushed to the hospital emergency but died within 10 minutes.
However, the police said the oxygen cylinder was on a trolly and Mr Maru was between the trolly and the machine when the cylinder got sucked into the machine.
An officer of the Mumbai police told the Times of India that Mr Maru died due to excessive inhalation of oxygen which leaked from the cylinder when it got sucked into the machine along with Mr Maru. The post-mortem examination of the deceased corroborated this.
A police case has been registered against the doctor-in-charge of the MRI room and the ward boy. Both have been arrested.
Why are metallic objects not allowed near an MRI machine?
MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines employ a very powerful magnetic field and produce radio waves that help to create high-quality images of the body parts. In the presence of a strong magnetic field, metallic objects become magnetised themselves and can be pulled towards the very high-powered magnet of the machine with such great force that the metal can crack open or rip through any soft surface, such as skin.
For this reason, any object containing metal, including jewellery, clothing with metallic fibres, zippers, buttons, underwire and even medical implants aren't allowed inside the MRI room.
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