MRI Machine Explodes At New Jersey Animal Hospital, Several Workers Injured

Several construction workers were injured when an MRI machine they were disassembling in a New Jersey animal hospital exploded on Friday morning, authorities say.

None of the 60 or so animals in the Oradell Animal Hospital in Paramus, New Jersey, were hurt during the explosion, claims NBC New York.

Charlotte, a five-month old cat, was being spayed on an operating table when the explosion occurred, said her owner Cheryl Dearborn of Northvale, NJ.  To wrap Charlotte’s surgery up quickly, the veterinarians told Dearborn that they had to use staples instead of stitches.  The cat was fine, Dearborn said, according to NorthJersey.com

One of the workers was taken to the hospital in critical condition with lacerations and crushing-related injuries to his body; the two others had respiratory complaints and other, mostly minor injuries, police said.

After the explosion there was a small leak of helium, which is used as a cooling agent inside of the MRI machine.

MRI explosions are rare but can be deadly, said Wlad Sobol, Ph.D., a medical physicist and professor of radiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, according to NorthJersey.com.

Sobol, who has studied MRI explosions, said that there are two potential causes.

An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine is a superconductive device, meaning it contains wire that can conduct electrical current without generating resistance, or heat, according to NorthJersey.com.

Superconductivity happens at extremely cold temperatures, made possible by bathing the wire in liquid helium.

If one of the magnets in the device is dropped or the helium runs out, superconductivity is lost, and the large amount of energy stored inside the magnet quickly encounters resistance and releases heat.  This can cause an explosion.

The other possible scenario is that the ventilation system for the liquid helium becomes clogged. “The pressure will build up and the magnet will explode,” Sobol said.

“The amount of energy stored in a magnet like that is not trivial,” Sobol said, adding that it is equivalent to several kilograms of TNT — “It’s like a bomb in its ability to destroy stuff.”

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Whitney Houston’s Daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown Taken Off Life Support

According to reports, the 21-year-old daughter of Whitney Houston remains in a coma in Emory University Hospital after she was found unconscious by her partner Nick Gordon and friend Max Lomas in her Roswell, Georgia home.

‘It seems like it might’ve been 10 or 15 minutes that she must have been alone,’ Lomas’ attorney Ashleigh Merhant told E! News. ‘But we don’t know at what point she actually ended up in the tub during that time.’

‘The odds are against her’: Bobbi Kristina’s cousin Jerod Brown wrote on his Instagram page on Thursday that ‘doctors don’t see any hope for change’ in her condition as he called for prayers.

Lomas found Bobbi Kristina after he went looking for her when a cable man knocked at the door, E! reported. When she did not respond, he went in and found her, his attorney said.

On Thursday, DailyMail.com learned that Bobbi’s life-support machine was switched off.  ‘The plug on Bobbi Kristina has been pulled,’ a police source said.

It is possible for a patient to survive despite artificial assistance being withdrawn.

Bobby Brown did not respond directly to the claims and slammed reports saying that the family were preparing to say goodbye to his youngest daughter.

‘This is false, just as is the vast majority of the other reporting that is currently taking place,’ he said in a statement on Thursday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2941615/Bobby-Brown-insists-daughter-Bobbi-Kristina-not-taken-life-support.html#ixzz3QzxO9i4d

Ebola Patient In Italy Gets Experimental Treatment

According to the AP, an Italian doctor who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone arrived in Italy and is being treated with the same experimental drugs used in the U.S. and other European countries.

Rome doctors declined to identify the antiviral drug used for treatment, though they said the drug has been used before in the U.S. and Europe.

The doctor, whose name wasn’t released, is in his 50s and has Italy’s first confirmed case of Ebola.  He arrived at a Rome military air base early Tuesday and was transported in a hazard-safe equipped ambulance to Lazzaro Spallanzani hospital, a Rome hospital that specializes in infectious diseases.

His condition is ’’stable,’’ doctor Emanuele Nicastri said at a press conference at the hospital. ’’He’s conscious and collaborating’’ with the medical team.

More than 15,000 people have been infected with Ebola and 5,420 have died, according to the World Health Organization.

New York Doctor Who Had Ebola To Be Released Tuesday

According to Boston.com and The New York Times, Dr. Craig Spencer, the New York City-based doctor who contracted Ebola after treating patients in Sierra Leone with Doctors Without Borders, will be released from Bellevue Hospital Tuesday morning in New York City.

Dr. Spencer was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct. 23 at Bellevue after 10 days of self-monitoring.

http://www.boston.com/health/2014/11/10/ebola-today-days-later-nurse-maine-officially-ebola-free/ixpF2JMocGE7Dvtpm3phLM/story.html

Person Being Tested For Ebola In Northern Ireland

According to The Guardian, a person who recently returned from west Africa is being tested in a Northern Irish hospital for Ebola.

The Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast has isolated the patient according to the Public Health Agency (PHA) on Sunday.

The patient has already tested positive for malaria while a blood sample will confirm whether they have also contracted Ebola.

Nursing staff at the west Belfast hospital are wearing protective clothing while caring for the patient, in accordance with new safety measures.

“The patient being treated in the Royal Victoria hospital, Belfast, has tested positive for malaria, and an Ebola test is being done as a precautionary measure,” a PHA statement said. “The PHA is liaising with colleagues and has advised that there is no increased risk to the wider community.”

The PHA stressed that the likelihood of contracting Ebola was extremely low unless the person had come into contact with blood or body fluids of a symptomatic person, adding that the risk to the public was low.

The agency added that it was in contact with the rest of the health service in the region.

Doctor In Sierra Leone Dies of Ebola

According to ABC News, a local doctor in Sierra Leone has died of Ebola. ABC claims he was the fifth local doctor in the West African nation to die of the disease.

ABC: “The death of Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone, was a blow to efforts to keep desperately needed health care workers safe in a country ravaged by the deadly virus.”

Sierra Leone’s small health care system has been strained by the virus, making it difficult to care for patients.

Its health care system was already fragile before the Ebola epidemic because of past conflict and a lack of resources.

The country had two doctors for every 100,000 people in 2010, compared to about 240 doctors for every 100,000 people in the United States, according to the World Health Organization.

George’s overnight death was announced by Dr. Brima Kargbo, Sierra Leone’s chief medical officer. George had been driven to the capital, Freetown, after reporting that he was not feeling well.

Doctors and nurses have been particularly vulnerable to contracting Ebola, as the virus is spread through bodily fluids.  WHO chief Margaret Chan has talked about the disease’s “heavy toll on frontline domestic medical staff.”

Nurse’s Discharge Leaves Just One Ebola Case In U.S.

A nurse’s release Tuesday from an Atlanta hospital leaves a single person in the United States now battling Ebola, though she and others — including President Barack Obama — stressed the fight against the deadly virus isn’t over.

“While this is a day for celebration and gratitude, I ask that we not lose focus on the thousands of families who continue to labor under the burden of this disease in West Africa,” said 29-year-old Amber Vinson.

Smiling broadly and occasionally brushing aside tears, Vinson was surrounded by relatives as well as Emory doctors and nurses.

Nurse Nina Pham from Dallas, who also had Ebola, was released Oct. 24 from a National Institutes of Health hospital in Bethesda, Md.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Kaci Hickox traveled from New Jersey to Maine, where her boyfriend is a senior nursing student at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.  Hickox, who spent the weekend in a quarantine tent in New Jersey, said she never had Ebola symptoms and tested negative in a preliminary evaluation. She also sharply criticized New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for ordering mandatory quarantines.

Hickox, told CNN that her “basic human rights have been violated,” and was released Monday, two days after testing negative for Ebola.  She was seemingly powerless to challenge her banishment to a quarantine tent in Newark.

The nurse’s treatment, as well as the quarantine policies of New York and New Jersey, have been criticized as heavy-handed.

Former Ebola patient Rick Sacra, a doctor infected in Liberia, likened the mandatory quarantine for returning health-care workers in New York and New Jersey to a “police state approach.”

Ebola Hysteria? West Virginia Hospital Goes On Lockdown During False Ebola Scare

Cabell Huntington Hospital in West Virginia has released more information regarding the emergency room lockdown Saturday evening.

According to a press release, the female patient who presented to the hospital does not have Ebola or any other communicable illness.

After a thorough investigation and in consultation with public health officials and the Centers for Disease Control, it was verified that the patient had not traveled abroad since June 2014 and has never been in any regions where Ebola is a threat.

According to the CBS affiliate wowktv.com: “The patient presented with flu-like symptoms and reported having returned to the U.S. approximately 6 weeks ago from Nigeria. Although 6 weeks is outside the incubation period for an Ebola infection, appropriate precautions were implemented. The patient was not a direct medical care provider and had no confirmed exposure to an Ebola patient.”

The patient suffered from a minor illness and no public risk was identified.