Posted on 12/12/2023 12:28:01 PM PST by Red Badger
A 57-year-old Wisconsin woman received superficial wounds to her right buttock earlier this year when a concealed firearm on her person was subjected to the powerful magnetism of an MRI device.
Though her injuries were relatively minor, consisting of a clean entry and exit through subcutaneous tissue, the incident is yet another reminder of the potentially deadly consequences of taking a loaded firearm into places where loaded firearms have no place.
Detailed in a report by the US Food and Drug Administration, the case follows a shockingly similar incident that took place in Brazil just a few months prior, in which a 40-year-old man died as a result of injuries sustained when his own gun fired in close proximity to an active MRI scanner.
Just how the unnamed woman in the more recent incident managed to slip her handgun past medical staff isn't clear, with personnel reporting the patient had undergone the standard screening procedure for potentially magnetic items, one that includes specific references to weapons.
MRI devices are seriously powerful, in all senses of the word. Not only are they useful for producing detailed images of our squishy bits for specialists to diagnose injuries and illnesses, they operate by producing incredibly strong electromagnetic fields.
Those fields twist the protons in your tissues so they all line up in the same direction like tiny compasses. When jiggled with a follow-up pulse of radio waves, the protons take differing amounts of time to realign; differences that translate into variations in tissue, which can be used to build an anatomical map.
While all protons wiggle and waggle in a magnetic field, the arrangements of particles in ferromagnetic materials – such as the elements iron, nickel, and cobalt – amplify this effect. Bathed in an MRI's typical magnetic field of around 1.5 to 3 tesla, there's less wiggling and more heating, shaking, and leaping.
That's the physics behind the basic rule of keeping metallic objects far away from an MRI. That includes piercings, jewelry, coins, phones, crucifixes, Iron Age artifacts, throwing stars, toy cars, lucky horseshoes, magnetic eyelashes, house keys, and, of course, firearms.
It's possible these (and other) unfortunate incidences are simply cases of feeling so at ease with packing heat that the weapon's presence just slips one's mind.
Given the risk of severe injury or death to one's self and others, stories like these can only serve as a reminder to double check and then check again if you're armed before entering a tube pumping out the magnetism of a few thousand fridge magnets. It just might save your ass.
I try to make it easy for both myself and the MRI tech when I go for any imaging. I wear a sports bra, jogging pants, and a loose T-shirt. I leave all my jewelry at home and do not even wear a hair clip. I have no tattoos or metal piercing. So when they ask those questions about metal I can assure them I have none on me. How someone could be so foolish as to forget their firearm or think it doesn’t “count” is beyond me.
Was working at [redacted] and someone left an oxygen tank in the MRI room. The whole room was destroyed.
I have 4 short wires in my chest, stainless steel I think, from my quad by-pass in 2020, Holding my chest bone together while it healed.
I had a MRI last month and they weren’t worried about them..........
It’s a wonder the whole wing wasn’t blow to bits..............
Ok, the article wasn’t very specific about that. The good news is, she was already at the hospital when she got shot!
I couldn’t bring a gun into the hospital, let alone into the MRI room. I wouldn’t even attempt it.
This is why we need stronger plastic for 3D printed plastic guns. The bulled and shell casings may be a problem.
How the hell could you forget the pistol on your person before getting into the MRI machine?!
Why would this idiot bring a gun into an MRI facility?
What I don’t understand is how the gun fired without the grip safety being depressed.
It must’ve been the cop’s first MRI.
At 57, she aged out of Darwin Award competition.
But taking a gun into the MRI room is just stupid.
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I agree! I have had MRIs in four different facilities- three hospitals and a radiology center. In all four, I had to remove my outer clothing and put on a gown or scrubs and remove all of my jewelry (wedding ring, watch, and even my crucifix) before they would let me enter the MRI. Everything was locked in a locker and the technician had the key on a counter in the control room.
Both the technician AND the cop messed up.
I wouldn’t dream of bringing a firearm into a place like that, off-duty cop or not.
Someone won the double dumbass award,
Before I retired I worked I. The metal working industry-a machine shop.
Before every MRI I had to have my eyes x-rayed to make sure there was no metal in them.
i think it depends on what part of the body the MRI is for.
same with a CT Scan
I have had only one MRi, but i had to tell them i had a hip replacement, but i was getting the MRi of my brain..
No, you dont have “2nd amendment rights” in an MRI scanning room. Neither do you have them in a nuclear power plant or around natural gas equipment, or in an oil refinery. Just to name a few.
Safety rules are no joke. You can’t just unload your gun, because I guarantee mistakes will be made.
Maybe a cartridge detonated when the chamber heated up.
No safety would prevent that.
MRI techs ask about joint replacements among other things, and emphasize that all metal must be removed. She’s clearly either a little forgetful or just a dumbass.
I’m no expert. Maybe the magnetic field did it, I don’t know….
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