Buddhi Ratnayake, 5, died while undergoing an MRI scan hospital in Sri Lanka on Feb.7 when the machine began to malfunction.

Her mother claimed she heard a loud explosion, then a doctor screaming, "Isn't somebody coming to help me? The oxygen pipes have burst." Though the girl was rushed to the ICU, the doctors were unable to revive her. Post-mortem reports show that the child died of oxygen deprivation.

Tobias Gilk, president and MRI safety director of Mednovus, speculates that rather than a burst oxygen pipe, the fatality was the result of a quench — cryogen gas escaping into the room and displacing oxygen.
"I could easily see how a sedated child with a suppressed respiratory system in a room where the oxygen is being displaced might die as a result of that condition," he says.

Gilk says there are numerous instances of similar accidents occurring all over the world, including the U.S. In fact, experts estimate that there are upwards of 10,000 MRI accidents in this country alone.

In 2001, Michael Colombini, 6, died during an MRI scan after being struck in the head with a metal oxygen tank that had been left in the testing room and was then drawn to the magnetic field of the machine. His death raised wider safety concerns and prompted the American College of Radiology (ACR) to release a whitepaper on MRI safety recommendations in 2002.

After a temporary drop in reported accidents two years after his death, MRI accident rates have been climbing back up ever since.

Gilk says, "If there was a high profile accident today — god forbid — there would be a lot of really uncomfortable people having to answer questions about how we let protective measures sit on the shelf."

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