Keith McAllister went to the radiology office on July 17, 2025, to help his wife. He didn’t have an appointment. He wasn’t a patient. He just wanted to help her sit up after her scan.
He never walked out.
McAllister, 61, of Hempstead in Nassau County, was dragged into an MRI machine by a metallic chain necklace he was wearing. The magnetic force pinned him to the scanner for nearly an hour before technicians could separate the chain from the machine. He suffered several heart attacks. He died that day.
Now his widow, Adrienne Jones McAllister, is suing the radiology office in Westbury.
The lawsuit, filed March 7 with the Nassau County Supreme Court, names four defendants: Nassau Open MRI, East Coast Radiology P.C., Sun Enterprises LLC, and GM Partners Westbury LLC. Jones McAllister is seeking an unspecified sum in damages for what the complaint calls “severe mental anguish and distress” caused by “negligent, wanton, reckless and careless acts of the defendants.” The amount sought exceeds the jurisdiction of all lower courts. For reference, New York Civil Courts cap claims at $50,000 according to the Unified Court System.
The allegations are stark. Technicians allowed McAllister to enter the MRI room without screening him for metal objects. They gave him no sufficient warning. They didn’t turn off the machine before he walked in. Most damning, the lawsuit says staff failed to operate an emergency shutoff switch that could have ended the magnetic pull.
He was there to help his wife. Nobody stopped him at the door.
“He went limp in my arms,” Jones McAllister said in an interview last summer, shortly after the incident.
Her daughter, Samantha Bodden of Hempstead, described the horror in a GoFundMe post dated July 18, 2025. “He was attached to the machine for almost an hour before they could release the chain from the machine,” Bodden wrote. “Unfortunately, on July 17, he lost his battle after having several heart attacks following the tragic accident.” The fundraiser has brought in $14,349 as of the post’s last update.
Bodden remembered her stepfather plainly. “Keith was a husband, a father, a stepfather, a grandfather, a brother, and an uncle. He was a friend to many.”
The physics here aren’t complicated. MRI machines use extraordinarily powerful static magnetic fields to produce images. Ferromagnetic metal objects don’t just get attracted. They become projectiles. The University of California, San Francisco has addressed the risk directly: “The static magnetic field of the MRI system is exceptionally strong,” the institution said in a statement, noting the field can cause some metal objects to act as projectiles. A chain necklace worn into that room isn’t a minor oversight. It’s a loaded situation.
Standard protocol at any properly run imaging facility requires screening every person who enters an MRI suite, patient or not. That includes family members, support staff, anyone. The machine doesn’t know who has a scheduled appointment and who doesn’t.
Screening wasn’t done. That’s what the lawsuit says, and Nassau Open MRI declined to provide any comment.
Jones McAllister is represented by attorney Andrew Finkelstein at Jacoby and Meyers, LLP and Crump Law Offices. Michael Lauterborn, another attorney who represented Jones McAllister, didn’t mince words about what this case means beyond the courtroom. “This heartbreaking incident highlights the critical importance of safety protocols in medical imaging facilities,” Lauterborn said.
Efforts to reach plaintiff’s counsel were unavailing as of April 13, according to Long Island Press, which first reported on the lawsuit.
Nassau County has roughly a dozen outpatient imaging centers scattered from Mineola to Massapequa. Most operate with minimal oversight between state inspections. There’s no requirement that facilities publicly disclose safety incidents. Families who bring a spouse or parent to an appointment assume someone at the front desk is watching for exactly this kind of hazard.
The McAllister case suggests that assumption can be a fatal one.
A wrongful death suit can’t undo what happened on that Tuesday last July. Jones McAllister walked into that office with her husband and left without him. The defendants will answer for their protocols, their training, and their failure to hit a shutoff switch. Whatever dollar figure eventually emerges from Nassau County Supreme Court, it won’t settle what the family lost.
Keith McAllister was 61. He was just trying to help his wife up off a table.