MRI explosion leaves 3 injured, including 2 hospital staffers
Three people are injured after an explosion occurred in an MRI suite at a government hospital in South Africa.
The incident happened at Pietersburg Provincial Hospital in Limpopo on Tuesday. Two hospital employees and a technician from a private service provider are said to have sustained moderate injuries, while the damage inflicted by the explosion has resulted in the entire radiology department temporarily suspending services, news outlets local to the incident have reported.
The explosion took place as the technician was “decommissioning the MRI machine,” according to Health MEC Dieketseng Mashego.
“When they were decommissioning the apparatus, it involved releasing excessive pressure from the machine so that it could be shut down,” Mashego said. “So, while the technician from the private company that we are using was busy with the execution of his duty, the unfortunate incident happened.”
In a statement to Health Imaging, MRI safety expert Tobias Gilk, MRSO, an MR architect and founder of Gilk Radiology Consultants, said that although these sorts of accidents are uncommon, they are a known problem.
Such incidents have typically occurred in the past during the servicing and de-installation of scanners, Gilk noted. When the liquid helium in scanner gets 1° C warmer, it can turn into a gas and warm up atmospheric temperatures. When that expanding gas is trapped inside a sealed, pressurized vessel, the pressure can build to the point that it will explode, he explained.
“While quenching an MRI is possible at any time, ‘quench-plosions’ appear to require errors in servicing the magnet or de-installation,” Gilk noted.
What happened at Pietersburg Provincial is still under investigation. Limpopo Department of Health spokesperson Neil Shikwambana said Tuesday that the pressure released from the MRI scanner caused infrastructure damage, which is what ultimately led to the injuries.
“An assessment is still being made to establish the cause of damage. Developments will be provided as they become available,” he said in a statement on the accident.
While the damaged area is temporarily closed, patients in need of radiology services will be directed either to the hospital’s mobile unit or referred to nearby imaging providers.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.