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A legal firestorm is brewing in the case of a man who died after being pulled into an MRI machine at a Westbury imaging center in July.
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump and New York State Trial Lawyers President Andrew Finkelstein have been retained by the family of 61-year-old Keith McAllister, 61, who died after being sucked into an MRI machine at a Westbury imaging center.
McAllister was at Nassau Open MRI on Post Avenue with his wife on July 20 when the tragic incident occurred. McAllister had accompanied Adrienne Jones-McAllister to an appointment for a routine scan on her knee.
The family says a technician asked McAllister to enter the MRI room to help his wife off the machine. He was wearing a weighted metallic training chain at the time; it’s long been considered dangerous to be near an MRI device wearing anything metallic.
As he stepped into the scan room, the MRI’s magnetic field reportedly yanked the chain, pulling McAllister violently into the machine, the family said.
The Westbury man suffered traumatic injuries and lost consciousness in his wife’s arms, the attorneys said. Despite desperate efforts by both Jones-McAllister and the technician to remove him, he remained pinned for nearly an hour until emergency crews arrived, the family said.
McAllister died the following day at a local hospital after suffering multiple heart attacks.
“This horrific and entirely preventable tragedy underscores the critical importance of safety protocols in medical facilities,” Crump said in a statement. “Keith McAllister should be alive today. No one, especially someone simply accompanying their loved one, should be exposed to fatal danger in a medical setting.”
Helped secure $310 million verdict
Crump previously represented the parents of Tyre Sampson, a 14-year-old Missouri boy who died in 2022 after falling 70 feet from the Orlando Free Fall ride at Icon Park. In that case, a Florida jury in December awarded Sampson’s parents $310 million in damages.
The ride’s Austrian manufacturer, Funtime, was ordered to pay $155 million to each parent. The company did not appear in court to defend itself during the one-day trial.
Crump also recently spoke on behalf of William McNeil Jr., whose violent arrest by police drew national outrage after video showed officers dragging him from his car and beating him during a traffic stop.
The incident, which occurred after McNeil was pulled over for driving without headlights in daylight, was addressed July 29 by Crump at the National Bar Association’s annual convention in Chicago.
Crump and Finkelstein said McAllister’s family demands full transparency into what happened and wants accountability from all responsible parties. Medical experts say such fatalities are extremely rare.
Top photo: Civil rights attorney Ben Crump (AP Photo/George Walker IV) and Keith McAllister (Facebook).
