A
Long Island, NY
, resident is dead following a freak MRI accident eerily akin to one portrayed in the most recent
Final Destination
film.
Nassau County
native
Keith McAllister
, 61, accompanied his wife,
Adrienne Jones-McAllister
, to an MRI appointment last Wednesday at the
Nassau Open MRI
facility for a knee scan. Though initially separated during the procedure, the husband was called in to the room by an attendant afterwards to assist his wife off the medical table.
According to protocol, all patients are required to remove any metal jewelry or accessories before entering the room and tube-like contraption for the MRI. However, Keith, not being a patient, continued to wear an app. 20 lbs. chain around his neck for weight training purposes as he approached the machine. A large lock hung from the chain to add to its mass.
That’s when, according to his wife, the man was “snatched” into the MRI by the strong magnetic waves of the medical instrument.
A tearful Adrienne revealed to
News 12 Long Island
that she was by her husband’s side as life began to leave his body.
“He went limp in my arms,” Jones-McAllister recalled. “I’m barely sleeping, I’m barely eating. I just can’t believe [it].
MRI machines are used to scan bodies to produce imagery of potential inner trauma or injuries via strong magnetic fields and radio waves.
The widow admits this wasn’t the first time her husband had worn the heavy chain while assisting her at the facility. She also says she saw every excruciating moment as it occurred.
“In [an] instant, the machine switched him around, pulled him [inside], and he hit the [back of the] MRI.”
61-year-old man dies after being pulled into MRI machine while wearing metal chain in Nassau County
https://t.co/Ks8jDD59o8
pic.twitter.com/mkh99OW3p0
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY)
July 18, 2025
As Keith was being pulled against his will, his wife and the assistant both tried in vain to free him.
“I was [screaming], ‘Can you turn off the machine? Call 911, do something,” Adrienne stated. “Just turn this damn machine off!”
Once police and medical help arrived at the scene, it was noted that the MRI accident resulted in a “medical episode” that caused Keith to suffer back-to-back heart attacks. By the time they were able to free him, it was already too late.
“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing,” Jones-McCallister added. “He waved goodbye to me, and then his whole body went limp. He went limp in my arms.”
Nassau County Police says an investigation into McCallister’s death is currently underway.
The McCallister family has since launched a
GoFundMe
to help with Keith’s funeral arrangements.
In an odd and unsettling coincidence, McCallister’s freak MRI accident mirrors one of the more brutal deaths seen in the latest
Final Destination
film,
Final Destination Bloodlines
.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
In the movie, a family goes above and beyond to cheat death once it’s learned their matriarch did the same decades ago. Her survival sets cosmic events in motion over the fact that none of them should’ve been born.
When it’s uncovered that one relative might be safe from death’s design due to an affair their mother had, he attempts to help another family member by causing an allergic reaction, then saving him with an EpiPen.
Unfortunately for the relative, Death is always one step ahead.
After the allergic cousin consumes a peanut-laden snack, an MRI in a nearby medical room turns on suddenly, going full tilt with its magnetic pull. The perceived savior is immediately and gruesomely brutalized, first by several body piercings ripping from his body through his clothes, and then by a flying wheelchair pushing him directly into the circular crevice of the machine.
That same MRI soon pulls a spring from the vending machine where the snack was obtained and lodges in the surviving relative’s forehead, killing him instantly.
