“THIS is really an unfortunate incident,” says Plastic surgeon Dr Vinay Jacob. “Thankfully, we were able to successfully rescue both our staff members and provide them timely treatment. We have already launched an internal inquiry to ascertain what went wrong.”

The two staff members Sunil Jadhav, 28, and Swami Ramaiah, 35, employees at Tata Memorial Hospital’s cancer treatment and research centre in Khargar in Navi Mumbai, India.

A male patient was wheeled in for a routine MRI. The attending doctor asked Sunil to fetch an oxygen mask. Sunil, who had never worked in the MRI room, thought he had been asked to bring an oxygen cylinder. Ignoring the sign warning visitors not to bring metal articles, including jewellery, inside, Sunil carried the oxygen cylinder into the MRI room, activating the machine’s magnetic field.

As Sunil flew across the room – the cylinder still tucked under his left arm – he took hold of Ramaiah.

The two men were pulled to the machine, where they remained stuck to it for nearly four hours before an engineer arrived and deactivated the magnetic field. Sunil fractured his elbow, Swami suffered a punctured urinary bladder, kidney damage and severe internal bleeding.