Thank the gods for you. I was reading these comments thinking I was insane.

I'm not saying it's the husband's fault, but I don't think it's 100% on the technician either.

I read it more like she asked the technician to get her husband and called out to her husband who presumably just walked in.

Also, "they discussed the chain on a previous visit" doesn't really change anything. Depending on how many people that technician sees and when that last visit was, they might've just forgotten.

A - standard metal detectors probably won't work well right at the MRI room door. Some facilities may have a longer hallway for access and putting one there, far from the actual MRI suite, would make a lot of sense (I think I visited one location that had that layout), but not all facilities are laid out in a way that that could work.

B - the nature of how a metal detector works would probably have negative impacts on MRI image quality if it is too close to the imager - even outside the shield room door.

I did a sort of tour of a couple dozen MRI facilities for a couple of years, the stronger ones all have radio-frequency shield rooms complete with metal / gasketed doors that are supposed to be closed during imaging. Actual practice regarding keeping those doors closed was pretty loose in the places / times I was visiting. And, in the article's case it sounds like imaging wasn't in progress so the door was probably standing open...

not at all practical. a big ol buzzer would have prevented this maybe, but really it's the relaxed culture around the MRI that let it happen. people need to be told either you don't go past the big heavy door with the NO METALS sign, or you get all the metal off you now, or both.

Couple things:

The magnet is ALWAYS on.

The "kill switch" takes about five minutes to actually deactivate the magnet and it costs about thirty grand in helium every time you push it.

The kill switch is VERY expensive to press, many thousands of dollars, and even when it does an "instant" magnet quench, by the time you hear the screams it's all over anyway, the metal has landed on the magnet. Quenching the magnet will make it let go, but it won't unbreak the neck bones.

the high powered magnet is always on. it's never safe to put metal near and MRI.

I pity the fool who don't know about Mr. T's chains.

Hospitals aren’t jails or high security government facilities. I could walk around a hospital right now and walk into an MRI room and nobody would physically stop me. I used to work in a hospital and we had a long meeting about signs, because a cleaner didn’t look at the door sign and walked into an MRI room with a metal floor buffer.

After reading another article: nope, necklace was just a huge locket on a chain. And the wife said "Keith, Keith, come help me up" which sound to me like:

• wife was making a big fuss for no good reason (might have had a reason according to a 3rd article)
• husband obeyed as any good husband would
• technician didn't inform the husband that his wife would be carted out of the MRI room and failed to react fast enough

If I was married and a bit dumber, I could probably also be lured to my death with my name being called out twice in that fashion. Really depends how good the signage was and how well the husband was informed.

hes going to have neck problems if he had lived, 20lbs on the neck will cause spinal deformities, and disc disease.