Police have returned to his family the fingers of a 32-year-old man who died in an MRI accident at Nair Hospital in Mumbai, India, in January 2018.
Rajesh Maruti Maru was killed when he was sucked into the bore of an MRI scanner while carrying an oxygen tank into the suite. The metal cylinder exploded, and Maru died shortly thereafter of complications from pneumothorax after inhaling the gas.
Maru's fingers became detached during the incident and remained in the magnet bore for two days following his death, until a lab technician finally removed them, according to a June 20 report from mid-day.com. DNA analysis at the Kalina Forensic Laboratory confirmed that the fingers belonged to Maru, yet they remained at the lab for months.
The senior police officer leading the investigation claimed last July that he was not aware of the fingers' whereabouts, the article noted. The family finally received the fingers after months of seeking them out at various police departments throughout Mumbai.
"It is important to perform last rites on all body parts, but in his case, the finger was still missing while the rest of the body was cremated," the victim's father, Shamji Maru, said. "I lost my son due to the negligence of the hospital, and to add to our sorrow, the authorities harassed us for 18 months in search of his finger."
