MRI machines going berserk (video)
This safety video offers scary scenes of MRI magnets sucking metal objects into the bed. A deadly serious Rod Serling-type (same pose, no cigarette) narrates.
It's both educational and a source of cheap thrills, at least for the first few minutes. (For a quick thrill, watch this YouTube video of an oxygen tank shooting through an MRI tube.) Link (Via TDG and Mind Hacks)
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oh, man!
can't wait to get to the hospital and be put through that...
maybe i can get someone to kick me in the grapes before i lay down, too.
"...in fact, the strength of an MRI's magnetic field is several thousand times greater than the Earth's magnetic field."
My goodness.
This actually happened in Westchester, NY, in 2001, killing a 6 year-old boy. Here's an article about it from WebMD.
What's really weird is that I know the guy in the video. He's an actor from Milwaukee.
One of my favorite MRI stories, from an old Dilbert newsletter:
"A friend of mine who works with MRI machines bet the medical salesman that he could not toss his wallet through the opening in the MRI magnet -- the one the patients' head goes through -- without having the wallet touch the sides.
The Induhvidual's wallet included all of his credit cards, which were instantly demagnetized in the process.
Although it cost my friend a soda, the snicker factor made it well worth the price."
Up here we had a mini-scandal: A local boy went in for an MRI, some techie forgot to, you know, remove an oxygen tank from the room, the machine got turned on and the boy was killed by the flying tank.
So weird stuff in the post but something that can be very, very deadly.
So some ignorance or denial needed to find it funny....
I had to get an MRI a few years back. They went through all the right procedures, having me put my wallet and change and glasses in a locker in another room. The MRI went fine, and when I got out the nurse asked where the key to my locker was. Without even thinking, I had dropped it in my pocket and it had stayed there throughout the whole MRI. I guess the key wasn't made from a magnetic metal, or else from the looks of that video it would have ripped right through my pants pocket.
I also had my eyebrow pierced at the time (seemed like the thing to do when I was 19). I told the nurse I didn't want to take it out (again, young and stupid). She told me I might feel a "slight tugging" during the MRI. She never checked it for magnetism. Thank god surgical steel isn't magnetic or I would have been in big trouble.
At the hospital where I had my MRI, there was a sign on the door into that area that said, Don't even think of entering if you have a pacemaker.