The magnet is always on

MRI safety: flying objects and burns.

Once you’ve been in the MRI field for any length of time, you start hearing the horror stories about things that have flown into a scanner. Newcomers often don’t take the danger seriously until they witness an oxygen tank or gurney flying into a magnet themselves. Please show this page to all MRI newcomers — for their own safety and the safety of their patients.

Have a picture or story of your own? Send it to moriel@simplyphysics.com. Let me know if you don’t mind having your name posted with it, or whether you’d rather remain anonymous (out of embarrassment?).

For far more information on MRI safety issues, I recommend Dr. Frank Shellock’s site, MRIsafety.com.

Flying objects

Click any photo for the full story. Everything below really happened.

A basket chair pulled into the bore of an MRI scanner — A patient’s chair, pulled in after 20 accident-free years.

An IV pole stuck to the front of an MRI scanner — An IV pole. What a mess.

A chair pulled against an MRI scanner bore — Chairs: a recurring theme.

A floor cleaning machine stuck to an MRI scanner — A floor cleaner meets a magnet.

A welding tank lodged in an MRI scanner bore — A welding tank. It destroyed the phantom in the bore.

Second view of a welding tank lodged in an MRI scanner — The welding tank, from another angle.

Metal object pulled into an MRI magnet — Another one for the collection.

An industrial floor polisher jammed in an MRI bore, view 1 of 4 — Floor polisher in the bore (1 of 4).

An industrial floor polisher jammed in an MRI bore, view 2 of 4 — Floor polisher (2 of 4).

An industrial floor polisher jammed in an MRI bore, view 3 of 4 — Floor polisher (3 of 4).

An industrial floor polisher jammed in an MRI bore, view 4 of 4 — Floor polisher (4 of 4). When are we going to learn?

An office chair inside an MRI scanner bore — A console chair that rolled its way in. A full day of downtime.

Another chair stuck to an MRI scanner — Yet another chair.

An oxygen bottle pulled into an MRI scanner — An O₂ tank. Elsewhere, one of these killed a child.

A pallet jack pulled against an MRI scanner — A pallet jack.

Watch: removing a chair from a magnet

See the removal operation on YouTube →

Burns

RF burns happen even when everything looks fine. Some of these photos are graphic — that’s the point.

Third-degree burn on a shoulder — 3rd-degree burns that surfaced hours later.

Second-degree burn from EKG cables — 2nd-degree, from EKG cables.

Third-degree burn from a pulse oximeter cable — 3rd-degree, from a pulse oximeter cable. The toe required amputation.

First-degree burn tracing a tattoo — 1st-degree tattoo burn. “Mythbusters” said it wasn’t possible.

Second-degree burn tracing a tattoo — 2nd-degree tattoo burn.

Burns at the bolt sites of a cervical fixation halo — Burns at the bolts of a cervical fixation halo.

Third-degree burns where the calves touched — 3rd-degree burns where the calves touched. Only a tingle during the scan.

Unexplained second-degree burn — Unexplainable 2nd-degree burn — no metal on the patient.

First-degree burn on an arm — 1st-degree burn on an arm.