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Long Island man wearing 9kg-metal necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine (www.independent.co.uk)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Not just the helium, there's a considerable time spent "recharging" the magnet with electricity - many patients will lose access to MRI scan service during the multiple days it is down for recharge.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Dont they loose the access to the machine anyway for few day? Im under impression metal slamming to the machine usually breaks it pretty good.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Well, the thing is, to kill the magnetic field within a few seconds would break the machine, so they don't do that because it would up the cost of a shutdown from tens of thousands of dollars to several hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the downtime would go from several days to potentially several months.

    As it is they "quench" the superconducting electromagnet, which then requires a large amount of LH2 and electricity to get going again. I have heard numbers like $30,000 to get the magnet running again, not counting lost revenue during the many days it takes to get going.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Well the thing is still that the weighted necklace pulled by 1.5 to 3 tesla towards the machine will also put it the machine out if comission from several days to several months.

    Also the down time of the machine depend from so many things like availbility of components, logistics and the actual damage happened, that even the most pragmatic operator could never calculate the price of the repair versus the value of the possibility of saving human life.

    FFS the saved 30k only buys pretty decent slightly used car. Its sick to even start to weight that kind of money to human life.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    The machines are actually built pretty tough for the impact. I think they're designed to resist a flying steel oxygen cylinder and just crack some plastic cover parts. One place I visited told a tale of attempting to remove the stuck O2 cylinder using a come-along and strap, but I believe they were unsuccessful and had to quench anyway to get it off.

    could never calculate the price of the repair versus the value of the possibility of saving human life.

    If necklace guy was being choked by his chain and quenching the magnet would have saved his life, I'm 99.99% certain that any tech I have ever spoken with would have quenched the magnet without hesitation. However, if the chain snapped his neck while dragging him across the room like being jerked in a hangman's jig, quenching is far too late to be of help - I'm pretty sure they would push the $30K button anyway, just out of respect for the dead and to make removing him slightly more dignified, also because they're not likely to get that steel ball off without quenching.

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