Westbury, July 19: A man who was pulled into an MRI machine in New York after he walked into the room wearing a large chain necklace has died, according to police and his wife, who told a local television outlet that he waved goodbye before his body went limp. The man, 61, had entered an MRI room while a scan was underway Wednesday afternoon at Nassau Open MRI. The machine's strong magnetic force drew him in by his metallic necklace, according to a release from the Nassau County Police Department.

He died Thursday afternoon, but a police officer who answered the phone at the Nassau County police precinct where the MRI facility is located said the department had not been given permission to release the name Saturday. Adrienne Jones-McAllister told News 12 Long Island in a recorded interview that she was undergoing an MRI on her knee when she asked the technician to get her husband, Keith McAllister, to help her get off the table. When he got close to her, she said, “at that instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him in and he hit the MRI.” Mumbai: Minor Boy Accidentally Fires Round From Loaded Italian Pistol After Finding Firearm in Garbage in Dahisar, Police Seize Gun Worth INR 1.5 Lakh.

“I said: 'Could you turn off the machine, call 911, do something, Turn this damn thing off!'” she recalled, as tears ran down her face. “He went limp in my arms.” She told News 12 that the technician summoned into the room her husband, who was wearing a 20-pound chain that he uses for weight training, an object they'd had a casual conversation about during a previous visit. “He waved goodbye to me and then his whole body went limp,” Jones-McAllister told the TV outlet.

A person who answered the phone at Nassau Open MRI on Long Island declined to comment Friday. The phone number went unanswered on Saturday. It wasn't the first New York death to result from an MRI machine. In 2001, 6-year-old Michael Colombini of Croton-on-Hudson was killed at the Westchester Medical Center when an oxygen tank flew into the chamber, drawn in by the MRI's 10-tonne electromagnet. In 2010, records filed in Westchester County revealed that the family settled a lawsuit for USD 2.9 million. Bhilai Accident Caught on Camera: Youth Dies, Friend Injured After Scooter Loses Control, Plunges Into Drain While Trying to Avoid Street Dog; Video Goes Viral.

MRI machines “employ a strong magnetic field” that “exerts very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels, and other magnetisable objects,” according to the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which says the units are “strong enough to fling a wheelchair across the room."

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)