In a bizarre incident, a 32-year-old man was killed after he was sucked into an MRI machine along with an oxygen cylinder at the BMC-run BYl Nair Charitable Hospital here.
More than 24 four hours after the tragic death of Rajesh Maruti Maru, Mumbai’s Agripada police registered a case under Section 304-A (Causing death by negligence) of IPC against Dr Siddhant Shah, ward boy Vitthal Chavan and lady ward attendant Sunita Surve and arrested all three of them on Sunday evening.
The incident took place when Maru, a resident of lalbaug in south-central Mumbai, had gone to see his sister’s mother-in-law laxmiben Solanki (62) who is undergoing treatment at the Nair Hospital, on Saturday morning.
Maru had accompanied one of his relative inside the Hospital’s MRI room at around 7.30 am on Saturday. He was carrying an oxygen cylinder being used by his relative, a senior citizen, when the two entered the MRI room.
The ward boy had allowed the cylinder being taken inside the MRI room, ignoring the guideline that bars the hospital staff to let no metallic objects — including a cylinder, jewellery and metallic fibres — inside the scanning room.
Informed hospital sources said that the moment Maru entered the scanning room, the metal in the cylinder activated the MRI machine’s powerful magnetic force which sucked both the cylinder along with Maru. A part of Marun’s body got stuck inside the machine along with cylinder. This led to leak of oxygen from the cylinder complicating matters.
Unlike X-rays and CT scans, a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) doesn’t use radiation.
The is a test is a test carried out using powerful magnets, radio waves, and a computer to make detailed pictures inside your body.
Chavan, the ward boy and another relative Harish Solanki, whose mother was the patient, managed to pull a fully swollen and heavily bleeding Maru out of the MRI machine. Maru was rushed to the emergency ward of the hospital where he died within next 10 minutes.
Blaming the negligence on the part of the hospital staff for the death, Maru’s brother-in-law Harish Solanki said: “A ward boy told Maru to carry an oxygen cylinder with him to MRI room which is prohibited. There was no else one around to prohibit Maru from
carrying the metallic cylinder inside the MRI room. I hold the hospital doctors and staff members solely responsible for the death of Maru”.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh to the family of Maru. “I spoke to the Chief Minister. He has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh from CM’s Relief Fund,” BJP MlA Mangal Prabhat lodha said.
Sources said Maru’s family members would meet Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Monday to demand an inquiry into the alleged medical negligence. Monday.
In a related development, Maru’s body has been sent to JJ Hospital for post-mortem.