(NY) MRI 'Disarms' Police officer

D

DialONE911

New member
MRI 'Disarms' Police Officer

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Technology fought the law -- and won.

An armed, off-duty police officer went this week to get a magnetic resonance imaging test. Clinic workers told it was all right to keep his handgun with him.

As soon as he entered the room, the device's heavy-duty magnet yanked the .45-caliber gun right out of his hand and the gun discharged. The bullet lodged in an exterior wall and no one was hurt.

It took three hours to power down the magnet and free the weapon.

An MRI is four times as powerful as magnets used to lift cars in junkyards, said Sgt. William Benwitz, who runs a firearms training unit.

The weapon is out of service. Benwitz said firing the weapon was too risky because its molecular structure might have been altered.

''Until we send this gun back to the factory, we're not even going to test-fire it,''he said. ''The metal is more brittle than it should be.''

----

You know, on second thought, there may be a good reason to prohibit ccws in hospitals after all.
 
ROTFLMAO :D :D :D

note to self: add MRI to automated home security defense system

[This message has been edited by Glamdring (edited September 15, 2000).]
 
Gosh!

This exact situation was addressed in the IWBA's Wound Ballistics Review years ago.

In what publication did this report appear? Thanks!

------------------
/s/ Shawn Dodson
Firearms Tactical Institute
http://www.firearmstactical.com



[This message has been edited by Shawn Dodson (edited September 16, 2000).]
 
Aside from what appears to be poorly researched fiction re operation of MRI unit, violation of standard procedures re patient; .....how did it pull the trigger?

Sam...gotta wear boots when readin this one.
 
In order to maintain symmetry of the "facts" of the case as related to date.

Must a been a Glock.

Sam...test pilots should study physics, will beer n ex lax be ok?
 
I have a few "Evil plastic guns", to bad they only shoot water.

------------------
Dead [Black Ops]
 
I kinda wonder about this one. When I had an MRI done, they asked on the questionaire if I had ever been shot with a BB gun or had been shot and the bullet not removed. The reason being was that if I had been shot and the bullet (or BB) not been removed, they couldn't proceed due to the machine would yank it from my body; no matter where it was located. They also ask if you have any metal pins or plates for the same reason. The Tech. should have known that the MRI is a Magnet; hence the reason they either have it in it's own building or the area is heavily insolated as so not to screw with computers / other equipment. Just MHO.

USP45usp
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Shawn Dodson:
In what publication did this report appear? Thanks![/quote]

I don't know about elsewhere in the country, but it's in today's print edition of the Atlanta Constitution: http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/today/news_933cd11b060260e40080.html .


<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DialONE911:
As soon as he entered the room, the device's heavy-duty magnet yanked the .45-caliber gun right out of his hand and the gun discharged. The bullet lodged in an exterior wall and no one was hurt.[/quote]

Is it just me, or is anyone else wondering what the gun was doing out of its holster and in his hand??!?

The gun must have discharged because he had his finger on or near the trigger as the MRI was pulling the gun from his grip (and the trigger snagged on his outstretched finger as it went flying away). Simply put, it happened because he didn't have the gun properly in its holster. Stupid, stupid, stupid.


------------------
"People who say guns are bad are lucky enough never to have been in a situation where someone has kicked down your door and threatened the life of your son and your sixty-five-year-old mother."
-- Memphis, Tennessee resident Gina Cushon, quoted in Laura Ingraham's book "The Hillary Trap"
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>The weapon is out of service. Benwitz said firing the weapon was too risky because its molecular structure might have been altered.[/quote]

How did a magnet alter the molecular structure of cold steel beyond magnetizing it? That in itself shouldn't damage the weapon.
 
I am inclined to think this is not true. At school the university has three NMR machines. This is Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Same thing as MRI but less scary abbreviation.

Maybe it could happen as the MRI is large enough to fit a human being rather than a little test tube. The magnetic field would have to be pretty large to fit around a person and align all those hydrogen atoms. I don't know how many Gauss it pulls, but one could look it up.

Powering down the magnet seems fishy too. Maybe that is a poor description of letting the magnetic coils come up to room temperature slowly.

Well, I know about some of the theory and have been a user of NMR/MRI technology and seems like a fishy story. Don't know all about the engineering so I can't be definitive in thinking that is a hoax.
 
Being in IS for a hospital, we have a couple of standing rules.

One is:
If you value your ATM/credit cards, notebook, PDA, knife (for me), and other sundry objects, avoid MRI.

TR
 
In a test reported in the IWBA journal Wound Ballistics Review "Firearms Safety in the MR Imaging Environment" (Volume 3, Number 2, 1997, P. 6) the MRI, just by itself, was able to cause parts of a handgun's firing mechanism to move. Fackler wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> Two of the cocked semi-automatic handhuns, however, had the hammer fall on an empty chamber as they were withdrawn from the magnetic field of the imager. The hammer of the Taurus 9mm handgun fell in two out of the six tests and the hammer of the Browning .380 handgun fell in all six tests.

I found it surprising that any of the handguns had their hammers fall in these tests. Based upon these published results, however, one cannot deny the possible danger. For example, a law enforcement officer might, inadvertantly, wear his or her handgun into an MR imaging suite, while accompanying a prisoner patient. The gun might be drawn into the barrel of the imager. The officer needs to know of the possibility that an accidental discharge can be induced by an attempt to remove the handgun from this powerful magnetic field. [/quote]

------------------
/s/ Shawn Dodson
Firearms Tactical Institute
http://www.firearmstactical.com
 
I once worked on a damaged MRI unit about 18 years ago.
I had to redo some of the shielding that had been destroyed when a 1/2" wrench had been sucked into the machine during a startup test.
A tech had inadvertently left the wrench on the plastic ladder in the room, alongside the machine.
It was missed when they looked around the floor for debris before turning it on for the first time.
WHANG! The wrench was bent in half on the way through the side, and it ruined a sizeable chunk of the machine.
 
Do you have any idea how many Gauss (SI units of magnetism) that the MRI generated? If anyone is interested I will try to look it up.
 
I just find it inconceivable that the technicians allowed the gun in the room. As was said previously, they routinely ask you to remove anything and everything metallic and question you closely about injuries, surgeries and implants. Technician fired? I hope so!
 
MRI imaging equipment has a magnetic field strength in the bore of the magnet that ranges from 1.5 Tesla on closed-bore high-field systems to 0.5 Tesla on open-bore systems. One Tesla (T) is equal to 10,000 Gauss (G). The average magnetic field strength at the surface of the earth is approximately 0.5 G, or 0.00005 T. Thus a 1.0T magnet has about 20,000 times the pull of the earth's magnetic field in the bore.

In all high-field systems,(usually 1.0T and above) the magnet is a superconducting coil type cooled to 4 degrees Kelvin by a bath of liquid nitrogen. If the machine needs repairs, the magnet is "quenched", or brought to room temperature by shutting down the power to the magnet coils and draining off the liquid nitrogen. The magnet is then no longer superconducting, and the field strength approaches zero. Quenching is a time-consuming and relatively expensive process, so it is only done if absolutely necessary.

Images are obtained by use of rapid shifting radiofrequency energy transmitted to and recieved from the patient by the use of coils placed over the body part to be imaged. The physics of how images are generated is a fascinating subject in itself, although the mathematics involved rapidly becomes impenetrable. (For me, anyway)

Any ferromagnetic object brought within close proximity to the magnet bore can become a missile hazard; i.e. pens, bolts, washers, oxygen tanks, gurneys, etc. During residency at Naval Hospital San Diego, we would occasionally give tours to high schoolers interested in medical professions. The MR techs had a standard demo they would give for these tours: They would stand in the door to the magnet room with a length of chain and move slowly into the room. The chain would straighten as it was attracted to the magnet bore until it was standing straight out in midair parallel to the floor. Once, they got too close, and it took the combined strength of 2 techs to get the chain back. Remember, the strength of the field falls off with the square of the distance, so the field won't tear the pen out of your pocket unless you get too close to the bore. The strength may be sufficient to erase your credit cards, though, within a step or two inside the door. (Ask me how I know this :()

Patients are asked questions about metal in or on their bodies for several reasons. Any ferromagnetic material may deflect within the field, so if there is any such object in the patient, we want to know about it. For example, older brain aneurysm clips may deflect or twist; this is a generally bad thing in the brain. Small imbedded pieces of metal (i.e. from grinding or other metalwork) in the eye near the retina moving around is also generally a bad thing. Retained orthopedic hardware is usually ok; sufficient scarring takes place after 6 weeks such that motion in the magnet bore does not occur. Likewise with cardiac bypass clips/stents after 6 weeks. So, having such objects "torn from your body" is very unlikely. However, any metal object (not just ferromagnetic) can cause an artifact (localized blurring) on the images that obscure the stuff we are doing the exam for in the first place. The artifact comes from local magnetic field inhomogeneity caused by the object itself. Because radiofrequency energy is used, induced currents can (theoretically) occur within the retained metal objects. This can cause local tissue heating, though again this is more a theoretical consideration than a real problem. However, if a patient had fine epicardial pacemaker wires implanted during heart bypass surgery, we avoid scanning them for fear of induced currents in the retained wires causing a cardiac arrhythmia.

Ref: Stark, David and Bradley, William; Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 3rd Edition Vol. 1 Mosby, Inc., 1999

DocH
Radiologist with a magnetic personality :)



[This message has been edited by DocH (edited September 18, 2000).]
 
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