MRI wins gunfight, disarms officer

[Dustbuster]

Had to share this!

 

Apparently an off-duty officer in Western NY State went to an outpatient imaging center. Here is the case report. The officer was carrying his Colt 1991-A1 compact. Due to a miscommunication with the technician and the officer, the officer entered the MRI room with his firearm. He attempted to set the firearm down on top of a cabinet that was 3 feet away from the MRI magnet bore. The magnet pulled the gun into itself. When the gun struck the side of the magnet it discharged a round. No one was hurt.

They shut down the magnet to remove the gun. According to reports, the gun was still in the cocked and locked position. There was an empty cartridge in the chamber.

 

 

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/10/13/machine-disarms-police-officer-discharges-weapon/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=2014-10-14&utm_campaign=Weekly+Newsletter

Edited October 14, 2014 by Dustbuster

[Peace]

We have built a lot of medical offices, surgery centers, and imaging centers over the years.  MRIs are no joke.

[satalac]

My dad always told me horror stories about MRIs snatching metal off of people. (He designs hospitals) Those magnets are STRONG.

[tnguy]

Worked with an experimental NMR supercon magnet in a different life. There was an article on the door of how they (somewhere else) had tested with an (unloaded) firearm in the field and managed to get the hammer to fall. So I can believe this. The weapon shouldn't discharge from the impact itself but there is a whole bunch else going on in a field that strong.

If that was a superconducting magnet, you don't just "shut it down" though. The field must be ramped up and down over a long period lest you cause a quench (and you don't want to do that). Edited October 14, 2014 by tnguy

[Dolomite_supafly]

A 1991A1 has a firing pin safety so the trigger MUST have been pulled to release the firing pin. That is unless they removed the firing pin safety. I have known a lot of people who have them removed to get the best possible trigger possible.

 

In the locked position it is impossible for the sear to get bumped off the hammer if installed correctly.

 

I wonder if the magnet field can agitate the powder enough to cause it to go off?

[tnguy]

It may have actually pulled the trigger or pulled the firing pin safety out of the way.

[tnguy]

Relevant part of the report (this is an old story)
 

 

At the time the weapon discharged, it was reportedly in a cocked and locked position; that is, the hammer was cocked and the thumb safety was engaged to prevent the hammer from striking the firing pin. A live round was in the chamber. (Many people who choose this weapon for personal protection will carry it in this manner because it allows them to quickly fire the weapon if needed.)

When the firearm was removed from the magnet, the gun was still in a cocked and locked position. An empty cartridge was found in the chamber. The presence of an empty cartridge in the chamber is highly unusual. If the thumb safety were not engaged and the weapon fired normally by depressing the trigger, the normal backward recoil of the slide should have automatically ejected the empty cartridge, and a new live round should have automatically been chambered. As discussed earlier, the thumb safety performs two functions: it prevents the sear from releasing the hammer, thereby preventing the hammer from striking the firing pin; it also locks the slide in place, preventing retrograde motion of the slide and automatic ejection of the empty cartridge. Thus, the presence of an empty cartridge in the chamber confirms that the thumb safety was engaged at the time the gun was fired. Given that the thumb safety was engaged when the gun discharged, it is also likely that the normal trigger and hammer mechanism of firing the gun was bypassed because the thumb safety would have also prevented release of the hammer.

The gun likely discharged as a result of the effect of the magnetic field on the firing pin block. The firing pin block was probably drawn into its uppermost position by force of the magnetic field. The firing pin block has to overcome only light pressure from a relatively small spring to release the firing pin. The pistol was likely drawn into the magnetic field so that the muzzle struck the magnet's bore first. With the firing pin allowed to move freely in its channel, the force of the impact on the muzzle end was sufficient to cause the firing pin to overcome its spring pressure and move forward to strike the primer of the chambered round.

Read More: http://www.ajronline.org/doi/full/10.2214/ajr.178.5.1781092