A 61-year-old man died after being pulled into an active MRI machine while wearing a heavy metal chain at a clinic in New York.

The man was wearing a large metal necklace when he entered a room where the machine, which uses a powerful magnetic field to create images, was operating.

A man who was sucked into an MRI machine at a Long Island medical office because he was wearing a metal chain as a scan was in progress has died from his injuries, according to police.

The Long Island man who was killed in a freak MRI machine accident was sporting a staggering 20-pound chain necklace adorned with a padlock at the time of the tragedy, his grieving wife said. Keith McAllister,

It wasn’t the first New York death to result from an MRI machine. In 2001, a six-year-old child from Croton-on-Hudson was killed at the Westchester Medical Center when an oxygen tank flew into the chamber, drawn in by the MRI’s 10-ton electromagnet. In 2010, records filed in Westchester County revealed that the family settled a lawsuit for $2.9m.

Adrienne Jones-McAllister told how her husband "went limp" in her arms after being sucked into an MRI machine.

The Long Island man killed in a freak MRI accident stood no chance against the machine’s magnetic field that pulled him in with enough force to “snap his neck,” according to an expert in the

Keith McAllister was caught in an MRI machine at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, N.Y. on July 16, and died of his injuries the following day. In an emotional interview, his wife recalled him going 'limp' in her arms and watching the machine 'snatch him.