Invisible Force

Documentary
Medicine
Science

Swept under the rug… Most MRI accidents are hushed-up and swept under the rug. The ‘safe’ imaging option isn’t supposed to hurt healthcare workers, or patients, or family members, but when things go badly, they can go very badly. Hosts John Posh and Tobias Gilk pull on the threads to reveal the hidden stories of “freak” MRI accidents.

Coming Soon: The Invisible Force Podcast

In July 2025, a man accompanied his wife for her MRI exam. How did he wind up dead?

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S1E1 “The 9-1-1 Call”

Join us for this brand new podcast series exploring a fatal MRI accident that occurred in 2025. This first episode drops you straight into the story of a tragic (and preventable) MRI death of a man named Keith McAllister, prompting questions of ‘how could this have happened?’ and ‘could this happen again?'

This series is dedicated to promoting MRI safety for patients, healthcare workers, as well as visitors. By “peeling back” the superficial coverage to get deep into what happened, we’ll be exposing where MRI safe practices break down, and how expected and preventable MRI accidents happen.

Our entire first series centers around the horrible MRI accident that happened on Long Island, New York, at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, NY, when a man who was trying to help his wife off of the MRI scanner table got pulled into the MRI scanner by a chain around his neck. The series dives deep into what happened, and who has responsibility to keep each of us safe if we ever need to have an MRI scan.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Performances: Gwen Langland, Julia Schifini

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E2 “Emergency Services Dispatch”

No number of first-responders could have pulled him out of the MRI scanner with that steel chain wrapped around his neck. While Mr. McAllister was being choked, why did it take so long to get him out? And why didn’t they just turn the MRI off? The Invisible Force podcast brings you along as we all discover together.

According to information from the family, Mr. Keith McAllister was inside the MRI scanner at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, NY, for nearly an hour, with the chain pressing against his throat. Police, fire department, and paramedics all rushed to the scene, but they couldn’t get him out of the MRI scanner. Throughout this horrible MRI accident, they were helpless to do more than watch.

The MRI safety measure that should have helped by turning of the magnetic field in an emergency, the MRI quench button, appeared to malfunction. Without it, there was no good option for how to rescue this man who was dying in front of them. Without that button, they were watching a quick rescue turn into a fatal MRI accident.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Performances: Gwen Langland, Jake Mastrangelo, Julia Schifini

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E3 “3rd Party Service”

The man is trapped in the MRI scanner - with the chain around his neck, steadily being choked to death by this steel constrictor - and the last-resort tool to get him free, the quench button, doesn’t work. In order to get him free, it appears that they’re going to have to come up with some kind of miracle! This episode of the Invisible Force tells the story of whether they did.

With the ‘emergency off’ button for the MRI scanner appearing to malfunction, the staff at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, NY, went for a ‘hail Mary’… they called their MRI service company to come and help force their MRI magnet to quench. The service person rushes across Long Island to the outpatient imaging center and -somehow – the MRI scanner’s magnet is made to quench!

For the first time, they can look to rescuing Mr. Keith McAllister. With the MRI scanner’s magnetic field dropped, the MRI safety worries about emergency personnel in the room evaporate, and they can get him out and to the hospital and to the care he needs.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E4 "He went limp in my arms!”

Finally! After an hour of trying to extract him from being trapped in the MRI, they’re able to get him out and rush him to the hospital. In the next 24-hours, however, the stakes of this accident are going to be raised, significantly. In this episode of the Invisible Force we’ll learn about the day following the accident, setting the stage for the next part of this story.

Everyone at Nassau Open MRI in Westbury or Long Island, NY, may have been breathing a sigh of relief that they’d finally removed the man who was being choked by a steel chain in their MRI scanner, but the MRI accident victim, Mr. Keith McAllister, was fighting for his life at the University Hospital.

The MRI safety community was abuzz, and rumors about this MRI accident were flying. Sadly, it was only the next day when we learned that he died as a result of the horrific fatal MRI accident with the chain around his neck.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E5 “MRI Safety Regulation”

As the Long Island neighbors said, “that should never happen,” and, “someone should be responsible.” So who had responsibilities to make sure that Nassau Open MRI was being run safely, and protecting the public from fatal MRI accidents? Between the feds, the State of New York, and Nassau County, *somebody* had MRI safety rules… right?

In this episode we take close looks at the MRI safety provisions and requirements of the different organizations, from the FDA and CMS, to national accreditation organizations like Joint Commission, to the State of New York, all the way down to the municipal requirements of Westbury, NY, and the staff at Nassau Open MRI.

What we’ll discover is that when it comes to MRI safety minimum rules, there effectively aren’t any. MRI is, from a patient safety standpoint, the ‘wild west’ with almost nothing assuring the safety of MRI patients or technologists.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E6 “McAllister Estate”

This episode focuses-in on the accounts of the actions of Mr. Keith McAllister, as well as the actions of family in the immediate aftermath of the fatal MRI accident that took Mr. McAllister’s life. This includes the family hiring two law firms, and the results of the Nassau County Police Department’s homicide investigation, and its referral to the District Attorney's office.

As this deadly MRI accident, described in media as a ‘freak accident,’ was slipping out of news coverage, the McAllister family was getting their legal team in place for the impending lawsuit against Nassau Open MRI. They started with Smith Lauterborn and Cheung, and then added the famous civil rights firm of Ben Crump to their legal team for the MRI death of Keith McAllister.

Even with all the lawyers, there was still no lawsuit over the fatal MRI accident… at least not yet. And the Nassau County DA’s Office was being very tight-lipped about whether they were contemplating criminal charges in relation to this MRI death.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E7 “Supporting Cast of Litigants"

After Mr. McAllister got drawn into the MRI scanner, the situation went from ‘bad’ to ‘worse’ when the quench button purportedly failed to turn off the MRI’s magnetic field. This episode delves into the quench button and its function… who made it… who installed it… who maintained it… and what liabilities they might face.

In MRI safety, the quench button is the last resort when accidents happen and someone is pinned against the MRI scanner. It is rare, but not unheard of, that this MRI emergency button would fail. So if the Nassau Open MRI quench button did malfunction, who made it? Who serviced this emergency button? Do they have a contributing role in the fatal MRI accident that killed Keith McAllister?

While the lawsuit isn’t yet filed for this deadly MRI, this episode investigates the claim of the MRI quench button failure, and works to identify what parties might have legal responsibility if it didn’t work as intended.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Performances: Mischa Stanton

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E8 “Nassau Open MRI”

In October of 2025, Nassau Open MRI out on Long Island, NY, formally closed up shop. Earlier they had deactivated their website, now they were officially closing their doors. They also weren’t talking to us. We had pretty much given up hope of getting anything from them until a remarkable employee of theirs interrupted one of Toby’s talks to ‘out’ themselves!

Here we learn about the 2025 ARMRIT meeting in which the MRI technologist from Nassau Open MRI stood up in the middle of a crowd and ‘doxxed’ himself to a few hundred colleagues. But not only did he stand up in the room, but he also had a long sit-down conversation about the fatal MRI accident, MRI safety practices, and the quench button that purportedly malfunctioned.

It was from this sit-down conversation that many new revelations about this fatal MRI accident emerged. Maybe the Nassau Open MRI radiologist didn’t know MRI safety? Maybe the tech pushed a button that wasn’t the quench button? Maybe much of what we thought we knew about this deadly MRI accident was just spin, and the facts were different…

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Performances: Mischa Stanton

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S1E9 "Once More… From The Beginning"

After months of wild-goose chases, obfuscation, and gaslighting, our hosts are feeling more confident in the details of our fatal MRI accident story that they’ve been able to dig up. This episode features a retelling of the events of the death of Keith McAllister at Nassau Open MRI, informed by the investigations of the past several months, with many of the original holes filled in.

Where the original telling of the story of this MRI death was based on news reports, the investigations of our hosts, John Posh and Tobias Gilk, has been able to change what we understand to be the truth. In this episode, they ‘take it from the top’ with a more comprehensive view of what happened at Nassau Open MRI in New York.

While there are still gaps in what is known about this deadly MRI accident, this episode gives us the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of what happened that resulted in the death of Mr. Keith McAllister.

Created and written by: CAIREreporting.org and Tobias “Toby” Gilk

Hosted by: Tobias “Toby” Gilk and John Posh

Performances: Mischa Stanton

Music & Art: Reggie Battle

Production: Multitude

Website: InvisibleForcePodcast.com

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.