A man died from injuries sustained after he smuggled a gun into his magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) chamber.
Forty-year-old lawyer Leandro Mathias de Novaes allegedly took a gun with him, hiding it under his belt, on his way to a date with his mother at Laboratorio Cura. “Both the patient and his attendant were appropriately instructed on procedures to enter the exam room and warned to remove all metal objects,” Laboratorio Cura said in a statement, as reported by the Miami Herald.
MRI machines work by creating strong magnetic fields (and radio waves) that target hydrogen nuclei (protons) in water. When protons are exposed to a magnetic field (about a thousand times stronger than that produced by a refrigerator magnet), they align on a single axis. This alignment creates a magnetic vector in the same orientation as the MRI scan machine axis.
As BMJ science editor Abi Berger explains, “When additional energy (in the form of a radio wave) is added to the magnetic field, the magnetic vector is deflected. The frequency of the radio wave causing the hydrogen nuclei to resonate depends on the element sought (in this case hydrogen) and the strength of the magnetic field.”
“When the radio frequency source is turned off, the magnetic vector returns to its resting state, causing a signal (also a radio wave) to propagate. This signal is used to create MR images.”
According to the information obtained, the gun, which was secretly inserted into the MRI room, was pulled from the waist by the machine before the bullets in it were discharged into the lawyer’s stomach. de Novaes was licensed to carry a gun, but it is not known why he did not remove it from his waist before entering the room. According to the New York Post, the lawyer was regularly posting pro-gun content on his TikTok channel before his death on February 6.
There have also been some cases in the past where the bringing of metal objects into the room with people caused MRI scans to be fatal.
While this system is very effective for seeing the inside of the body and especially the cartilage and muscles that other scanning methods can’t image so effectively, it’s not very good if you’re carrying any metal object or a loaded firearm. The latest incident proves this.
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