A police officer in rural Illinois has learned the hard way the true power of magnetism.
The unnamed law enforcement official investigating a burglary inside a building housing a doctor’s office in Carol Stream had his gun stuck to an MRI machine Friday.
The incident took place inside the offices of Advantage MRI at 640 East St Charles Road in Carol Stream – a village of 40,000.
According to the building’s owner, the MRI device’s magnetism pulled the officer’s service weapon away, sticking it to the machine, NBC Chicago reported.
Since there is no way to quickly disable the magnetic force, the firearm remained immovable and no one was allowed inside the building.
Carol Stream police said no one was injured in the bizarre incident, and the manufacturer of the MRI machine was approached for assistance.
On Saturday, MailOnline attempted to contact the Carol Stream police, but no one was immediately available for comment.
A receptionist at Advantage MRI who gave her name only as Bethany said in a brief phone interview that the MRI machine was operational as of Saturday morning.
The office employee also said that the burglary took place in the building rather than in the doctor’s office.
Powerful pull: The officer entered the imaging room and immediately had his service firearm wrenched from his hand by the magnetism of the MRI machine
Oddly enough, this is not the first time that a pistol got stuck on an imaging device.
In 2009, Orlando Sentinel reported that a police officer from Jacksonville, Florida, who entered an MRI room with her mother had her gun pulled to the machine, trapping her hand between the weapon and the device.
The female officer was able to free herself, but the weapon remained plastered against the MRI machine for hours.
A similar incident happened in 2006 when an off-duty cop went to an imaging center in upstate New York for a test caring a pistol, which he took into the MRI room.
Not surprisingly, the gun was promptly drawn to the imaging device as the officer attempted to put it on top of a cabinet, and spontaneously discharged a bullet into a wall. Luckily, no one was hurt.
