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MRI Accident Turns Deadly, Mammo Payments, and OEM Woes
July 24, 2025
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Together with
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“Everybody walks around and is happy to recite the bumper sticker slogan that MRI is the safe modality, and nobody’s willing to actually require the best practices that could make it that way.”
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MRI safety expert Tobias Gilk.
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Assessing bone density is an important population health tool, but many eligible people aren’t getting bone measurement scans. In this Imaging Wire Show interview, we talked to key opinion leaders about the new technologies becoming available to expand bone density screening, such as AutoBMD from HeartLung Technologies. Our guests include Morteza Naghavi, MD; David Yankelevitz, MD; Claudia Henschke, MD, PhD; Thomas Atlas, MD; and Anthony Reeves, PhD.
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Stock photo of MRI scanner. |
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A tragic MRI accident in Long Island, New York, has turned deadly. A man who was pulled into a mobile MRI scanner by a heavy chain he was wearing died of his injuries.
Keith McAllister was waiting outside a mobile MRI trailer operated by Nassau Open MRI on Long Island as his wife received a knee scan.
- McAllister was wearing a weight-training chain around his neck that weighed some 20 pounds.
When he entered the trailer to help his wife get off the scanner table, the system’s powerful 1.5T magnetic field drew him against the magnet. It took staff an hour to free him.
Investigators are still looking into the details of the episode, but it underscores the shortcomings in how MRI safety is regulated in the U.S., where fatal MRI accidents are extremely rare but still do occur.
- That’s according to MRI safety expert Tobias Gilk, vice president at architectural firm Radiology Planning and founder of Gilk Radiology Consultants, who spoke to The Imaging Wire about the accident.
The U.S. has some of the most comprehensive and sophisticated guidelines on MRI safety, encapsulated in the ACR Manual on MR Safety.
- What’s more, the radiology community including ACR, ISMRM, ASRT, and others are currently observing their annual MR Safety Week to promote safe MRI scanning – an event that started just a few days after McAllister died.
But despite the great leaps in knowledge about MRI safety, Gilk believes that keeping patients safe is complicated by the exponential growth in the modality’s complexity, while actual enforcement of safety standards is lacking.
- Many state health departments don’t even address MRI safety as they focus more aggressively on regulating ionizing imaging modalities like CT and X-ray, and healthcare certification bodies like the Joint Commission lack enforcement teeth.
Instead, MRI safety often becomes the responsibility of technologists who frequently must juggle multiple tasks as they manage both patients and scanner operations.
- This can be particularly challenging in mobile MRI coaches, often staffed by a single MRI technologist where the only barrier between the outside world and the scanning environment is just a single – often unlocked – door.
The Takeaway
The tragic death of Keith McAllister in a mobile MRI trailer shows that all the guidelines and safety events in the world won’t keep patients safe unless accompanied by stronger enforcement of the knowledge the radiology community already has. We can do better.
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DeepHealth Completes iCAD Acquisition
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- Philips Lands UroNav Clearance: Philips received FDA clearance for the latest version of its UroNav technology for image-guided navigation in prostate cancer therapy. UroNav combines real-time ultrasound with pre-procedural MRI scans to improve the precision and accuracy of therapeutic interventions. The newly cleared version includes advanced annotation workflow during focal therapy procedures.
- Turner Launches Point-of-Care DR: Turner Imaging Systems added a new model to its Enduro DR family of portable digital radiography systems. Enduro DR ES90 is a more powerful system that’s optimized for full-body imaging with higher output power and adjustable collimation. The system is targeted at urgent care facilities, emergency departments, correctional healthcare sites, and field medical operations. It’s the second system in the Enduro DR family after Enduro DR ES70, a high-mobility system for extremity imaging that Turner launched last year.
- China Woes Force Imaging OEMs to Shift Strategies: Big medical imaging OEMs are shifting their manufacturing strategies due to lower sales in China, but they still see the country as an important market. That’s according to an article in Medical Buyer that profiles the activities of GE HealthCare, Siemens Healthineers, and Philips. Each saw double-digit declines in quarterly 2024 China revenues and are concerned about the impact of tariffs, but are stepping up efforts to streamline supply chains and cut costs due to the country’s long-term growth potential.
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Validating AI at Scale
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The Future of Fluoroscopy Is Here
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AI-Based Automated Echo Measurements
Discover how researchers improved sonographer workflow using AI-based automated echocardiography measurements in the AI-ECHO randomized crossover trial on this page from Us2.ai.
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