Indian MR technologist Swami Ramaiah has now received a settlement of nearly $150,000, two years after he was left temporarily paralyzed from the waist down in an accident at a Tata Memorial Hospital run treatment and research center in Navi, Mumbai, in 2014.

“Compensation I have received is not going to bring back what I lost. But it is time to move on,” Swami Ramaiah told the Mumbai Mirror.

The tragedy unfolded after a hospital worker entered the scanner room with a large metal oxygen cylinder. The pair were sucked into the MR machine and pinned there by the tank for four hours.
This compromised the circulation in Ramaiah's lower body, punctured his bladder, hurt his kidneys and led to substantial internal bleeding and fractured a shoulder.

He still can't walk without aid, the paper reported.

Engineers desperately trying to get the man out of the MR ran into trouble when they found that the “switch-off button” was disabled by manufacturer GE.

At one point a rope was tied to the cylinder and as many as 20 people tried to pull it free to no avail.

An investigation in 2015 by Dr. Venkata Varaprasada Rao, chief administrative officer of Tata Memorial Hospital at the time, and Deputy Director of the Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer, Dr. Sudeep Gupta, found that his injuries would have been much less serious had the machine been quickly shut off.

At a press conference at the time of the accident, Gupta said that the machine was purchased four years earlier and that regular maintenance had been performed by GE engineers just six months before the mishap.

"We were shocked," he said. "Despite several attempts to switch off the machine, we just could not disable it. Ideally, we should have removed both of our employees in 30 seconds, but they were stuck for four hours," he stated.

Beyond the fact of the compensation, other details of the settlement remain confidential as part of an agreement with General Electric.

The mishap only resolved after a GE engineer arrived at the facility and successfully deactivated the magnetic field.

Although Ramaiah returned to work at the facility in 2015, it was only recently that he could bring himself to reenter the MR room itself. “I was operating the machine from outside the MR room all this while. Even now, I am constantly on the lookout for anyone carrying a metal object into the room. Even a slight sound makes me jump,” he told the Mirror. “I still get nightmares about the accident. But gradually I am trying to get back to my normal life.”

GE has been an active participant in India's health care industry. In late 2016 it partnered with Tata Trusts to train 10,000 new technicians in various health care areas of a three-year span. At present, according to their joint statement, a National Skill Development Corp. estimate puts the current requirement for allied health care professionals in India at nearly 6.5 million and the supply at under 300,000.

“Tata Trusts aim to drive improvement in health care delivery by enabling availability of skilled and motivated health care personnel,” R, Venkataramanan, managing trustee of Tata Trusts said at that time, adding that “we believe that this partnership with GE Healthcare will allow many bright young minds, especially women, to come forward and bridge this gap.”

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