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MRI Mishap Said to Cause Woman’s Suicide

(CN) - A Georgia woman's suicide was the direct result of permanent and painful injuries she sustained after being thrown against an MRI machine in a medical diagnostic center, a wrongful death lawsuit claims.

In a complaint filed in the Fulton County Superior Court, Whitney Reid says his wife Laurie was referred to defendant OMI Diagnostics of Georgia by her doctor in relation to an orthopedic condition that was causing her considerable pain.

On the day of her visit to the facility's Lake Hearn, Ga. office, Laurie Reid was very tired and had considerable trouble walking and even moving about due to the ailments for which she required an MRI scan, the complaint says.

As a result, an orderly at the facility helped her into a wheelchair, and proceeded to take her into a procedure room where the MRI was already operating.

"When the wheelchair was pushed into the MRI procedure room, it attracted to the magnet of the MRI at a high rate of speed, pulling Ms. Reid while in the wheelchair towards the MRI machine," the complaint says.

It continues: "The attractive force of the magnet pulled the wheelchair with such force that Laurie Reid was pulled into the device hitting it violently. After the violent impact of hining the MU machine, Ms. Reid was pinned by the wheelchair against the magnet causing her further and additional griivous injuries all over her body, including her face, head and skull, and with great physical pain and mental shock, anguish and suffering."

Whitney Reid says defendant Cammy Whiting, being both the MRI technologist and the supervisor of the facility, should have known the risks of bringing a metal chair into a room where a large electric magnet was operating and should have instructed her staff on safe and proper procedures for bringing non-mobile patients into the room.

"Absolutely no fenomagnetic objects should have been allowed inside a magnet room or within the pre-determined radius of the magnetic field," Reid says. "The use of the wheelchair was a decision by Cammy Whiting, and an action which did not require the exercise of her professional judgment, knowledge, or skill. As such, the use of the wheelchair in transporting Laurie Reid into the MRI room is not based upon professional malpractice; but, upon simple negligence."

As a result of the incident, Laurie Reid sustained permanent physical and psychological injuries, the complaint says.

Afterwards, the injuries to her head, skull, brain and nervous system -- on top of her pre-existing orthopedic condition -- caused her to become severely depressed and permanently disabled, the filing continues.

"The resulting physical, nervous and internal injuries inflicted upon Laurie Reid caused her to suffer great and intense pain, mental distress and loss of sleep permanently diminishing her quality of life thereafter in a substantial way," the complaint says. "The shock and horror of the incident caused her great foreboding and melancholy resulting in pronounced mental anguish and severe depression with a negative outlook on her life and future as her excruciating pain, caused by the Defendant's negligence, did not subside but, worsened as time passed."

On February 5, 2013, in "unbearable and agonizing pain," Laurie Reid committed suicide.

Whitney Reid seeks punitive damages on claims of negligence and wrongful death.

He is represented by Benjamin Bagwell of Cumming, Ga.

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