South Korean man dies after oxygen cylinder sucked into MRI machine
- The 60-year-old patient was hit in the head by a 60kg oxygen cylinder while undergoing a magnetic resonance imaging scan at a hospital in Gimhae
- Projectiles are one of the biggest dangers associated with MRI scanners, as the strong magnetic fields they generate cause metal objects to become airborne
The man, who has not been named, was admitted to the MRI suite in a hospital late on Thursday in a critical condition, suffering from seizures.
“We’re investigating why the oxygen tank was brought into the room,” Police Superintendent Choi Tae-yong told This Week In Asia, adding that the inbuilt oxygen supply system may have been malfunctioning. “We will thoroughly investigate the incident to determine whether human errors were involved.”
Projectiles are one of the biggest dangers associated with MRI scanners, as the strong magnetic fields generated by the machines – which are up to 60,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field – attract metal objects and cause them to become airborne.
There are more than 1,700 MRI scanners in South Korea and while incidents involving small metal objects have happened in the past, Park Beom-jin of the Korea Society of Radiology said he had “never seen a thing like this happening in this country”.
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“Medical personnel working in MRI rooms should exercise extreme caution to make sure that nothing metallic is brought in. This accident should not have happened,” said Park, who is also a professor at the Korea University Anam Hospital.
Anyone entering an MRI examination room is required to leave all magnetic metal objects outside, according to guidelines on the South Korean Food and Drug Safety Ministry’s website.
This includes jewellery, coins, keys, credit cards, watches and hearing aids, it said, adding that strong magnetic fields can also destroy data on mobile phones and bank cards.
MRI accidents involving metallic objects should not happen, according to Tobias Gilk, senior vice-president of Radiology-Planning and founder of Gilk Radiology Consultant.
Projectile accidents still continue to happen pretty regularly, and radiology should hang our heads for that
“Despite being a ‘never event’, MRI magnetic projectile accidents still continue to happen pretty regularly, and radiology should hang our heads for that,” the MRI safety advocate was cited as saying by medical imaging website AuntMinnie.com following the death.
“The fact is that almost nowhere in the world are there actual explicit rules or requirements to follow the long-established best practices that would help prevent exactly this sort of accident.”
This is not the first time that oxygen cylinders near MRI machines have led to fatalities.
The victim’s uncle said at the time that his nephew had been asked to carry the cylinder by a junior staff member who assured him the machine was switched off.
A similar accident in 2001 saw a six-year-old boy die in a New York-area hospital after his head was crushed by an oxygen cylinder flung across the room by an MRI machine.
