NEW YORK, United States — A man who accompanied his wife to a New York clinic for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of her knee died after he was pulled to the machine by a heavy weight-training chain he wore around his neck.

According to a Sky News report, Keith McAllister, 61, entered the MRI room at Nassau Open MRI last Wednesday while a scan was being performed on his wife’s knee. The police said the machine’s powerful magnetic force attracted the nine kilogram metal chain, pulling McAllister by his neck into the scanner.

His wife, Adrienne Jones-McAllister, told News 12 Long Island that she had called for her husband’s help from inside the MRI room.

“I yelled out Keith’s name, shouting, ‘Keith, come help me up,'” she recalled. “He came into the room still wearing his chain—and I saw the machine snatch him and pull him in. He went limp in my arms. He died.”

The police revealed that the incident had triggered a “medical episode”, and Mr McAllister was admitted to hospital in critical condition. He suffered multiple heart attacks after being freed from the machine and was later pronounced dead, the report said.

MRI machines use powerful magnetic fields to create detailed images of the body’s internal structures. With the strength of the magnetic field, metal objects can become dangerous projectiles if brought too close. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering warns that the forces inside an MRI room are strong enough to “fling a wheelchair across the room”.