Read the whole article because it’s hilarious.
Holy shit, they pulled the emergency release on one of those MRI machines. I think that adds a zero or two to the cost of bringing back online.
I’m just an XRay tech. But I would expect at least one whole day, for a pair of engineers to get it running again and re-certified. $20-50K for their time, plus missed revenue from the lost day. Best case could total $100K easy. Way more, if the damage is more than cosmetic.
You’re not counting the materials costs. I doubt that medical grade helium is cheap.
True. I don’t know how much that is. But liquid helium shouldn’t be “medical grade” really. It’s just a coolant for the superconducting magnets, same as any industrial use.
In my experience the only thing that makes a material professional grade is a paper trail. If something goes wrong and you get sued you want to be able to absolutely prove you didn’t cheap out on any of the materials. It adds a lot of cost to keep batches separate and making sure none of the paperwork gets mixed up. Especially if multiple companies are involved in creating and distributing the material. I work in an ISO compliant shop and we have a lot of folders moving around with different orders, it can be a nightmare keeping everything straight when things are busy.
I presume that it has to be certified and probably heavily filtered. It’s not going to be the same as what goes into party balloons.
Liquid helium is -269 °C. There is no risk of confusing it with what’s in balloons.
And its a medical setting which means that the products you use will be certified and calibrated in just the right way.
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It isn’t, but as Thetimefarm above says, the paper trail is what matters. Medical grade liquid helium for MRI machines is a thing. That paper trail is what adds a few zeros to the cost.
As a side note, this is similar to why Fluke multimeters are so expensive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay9wFQAW19Y
tl;dw: companies have reams of documents for their certification procedures of equipment, and calibration of the equipment to certify the equipment, and they’re based around the specifics of Fluke mutimeters. They aren’t more accurate or even much fancier than a nice hobbyist meter. Those companies must buy Fluke or completely redo all their procedures with accompanying documentation and certifying by professional engineers. If you’re not such a company, don’t bother spending all that extra money on Fluke.
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is less pure than research grade or grade-6. That’s 99% vs 99.9999%.
Medical grade might be used for inhalation by patients and traces of other air is perfectly acceptable. MRI cryocoolers need more purity to keep the magnet cold.
https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium
Amazingly people hate this concept, and it’s strange. We all got downvoted for pointing this out.
“Medical grade” is less pure than what MRIs (research grade).
Medical grade or grade-4.0 is 99% pure and is meant for inhalation. “Research grade” or grade-6 is 99.9999% pure.
https://www.westairgases.com/blog/exploring-the-most-essential-and-underappreciated-uses-for-helium
Yeah, I think I remember something like 10-20k to refill the cooling on an MRI, and that is just topping it off as some is slowly lost. The helium is just used to cool it. Helium is helium, so no such thing as medical vs not. The cost to repair this thing is going to be absurd. They are making better machines now have little to no loss, but I don’t think those are super prevalent yet.
More than a day. Ramping can take multiple days, then it has to be conpletely recalibrated and shimmed.
Probably need a new magnet, quenching can melt those puppies. Lot of energy stored in that field.
Yeah, quenching the machine makes bringing it back online $200k+ depending on the system
Yeah, that liquid helium and the MRI down time are super expensive
even if it was quenched the right way: downtime, helium, restarting the entire thing would also cost pretty penny, and maybe replacement of damaged magnet too if that’s what they did
At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said.
Honestly this might be a case where his laziness saved his life. If he’d been strapped in properly depending on where that strap goes he could’ve taken a nasty ride. And that would have been priceless to watch.
If that had happened, I’d bet money they would have arrested clinic staff for assaulting an officer or some other bullshit charge. They already do this when police shoot innocent bystanders.
Officers allegedly raided the diagnostic center, located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, thinking it was a front for an illegal cannabis cultivation facility, pointing to higher-than-usual energy use and the “distinct odor” of cannabis plants, according to the lawsuit.
MRI machine probably draws quite a bit
The real takeaway here is that they bullshitted smelling an odor of cannabis when there was none as an excuse to justify starting the raid in the first place. Some officer(s) lied on a form somewhere.
I don’t know if there is any single takeaway here, this story is just fucking ridiculous on every single level.
- They bullshited themselves into a search warrant based on typical cannabis “investigation methods”.
- In a state where recreational cannabis use is legal.
- Persisted in the search even after their main argument for it, high energy usage indicating a grow-op, fell away when it was clear it was indeed a medical facility.
- Made the motherfucking “Gun flies to MRI” TV trope a certified reality. This is a thing that verifiably happened now.
- Instead of getting help, used a sealed (!) emergency shutdown button…
- …which damaged the machine. And released thousands of dollars worth of helium gas.
- Forgot their loaded magazine on the ground.
This can’t be real. I’m fucking dying over here. Please let there be bodycam footage of the cop speaking in a high pitched voice after. (I know the helium was probably not released into the room, but one can hope I guess)
Made the motherfucking “Gun flies to MRI” TV trope a certified reality. This is a thing that verifiably happened now.
All those writers and directors who were laughed at and mocked have now been vindicated.
5 . Instead of getting help, used a sealed (!) emergency shutdown button…
The sealed shutdown was definitely behind glass which the cop smashed with the nearest object just like in every movie
Didn’t they recently rule that cops can no longer use the “I smelled weed” excuse as reasonable suspicion/probable cause? Maybe that was just one state.
Seems doubly ridiculous that this happened in California
And if it did smell like weed near the MRI place, you know what I’d suspect? That’s a venn diagram with cancer patients in the middle.
You really want to crack down on cancer patients?
The answer has always been yes.
Look, WA was one of the first states to legalize, just weeks after CO. There was a police officer in Seattle who had to be reassigned because he kept writing tickets to people with weed even though it was legal. The point? Right-wing nuts are antisocial.
Arizona was sending people to prison even though they had the medical marijuana card on them. It took the State Supreme Court to tell them they couldn’t just redefine words to say the new law didn’t count for edibles and vapes.
You are using critical thinking. Please stop.
I’m sorry, you’ve been disqualified from any chance of employment as a police officer. You’ve shown entirely too much critical thinking here.
That was Illinois but honestly it’s just obvious in any state with a recreational/medicinal use law.
It’s ridiculous they’re allowed to keep using it as an excuse in general.
i think that was illinois during traffic stops
It has personally saved my ass 👍
claiming the odor of pot is, was, and will always be a bullshit lie and manufacturing of probable cause.
Is it even a justification? That’s legal in California.
It is until the court system tells them it isn’t. Illinois recently did that.
Or an employee regularly smokes a joint in the alley. Article says there was one employee in the office during the raid.
Yep. And that would have been legal anyway. This was really about ring-wing zealots being right-wing.
“Doctors are just a bunch of overeducated assholes who think they are smarter than everyone else. What could they possibly be doing with all that electricity?”
- LAPD probably
“Experts- what do they know? I definitely smelled weed.”
“Do you think it’s the clearly sick looking person in a gown standing outside the building labeled a medical facility with a handrolled cigarette that smells like weed?”
“Nah, that’s just someone who is buying weed from them.”
“Trust me, I’m an expert.”
MRI machine probably draws quite a bit
Not after dumbass broke it.
it most certainly drew a lot of energy while the gun was inside of it lol
The icing on the donut:
The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.
Literally just a legally-sanctioned gang at this point.
At all points. It was a gang that
started wearingwas given badges, not a ‘serve and protect’ force that (d)evolved into a gang.Well I can only speak for where I grew up (not CA) in the 90s, and police were far less militarized back then.
They may have always been racist pieces of shit, but things are definitely much worse than they were back then.
Oh, that’s def true, headlines about military equipment being bought by normal USA police departments keep popping up.
The militarisation def doesn’t help with the problem.
But I was referring more to the start, the colonial and early independent era, what existing groups were recruited/rebranded into the first police departments.
Hey, y’all need to chill out. The cops have qualified immunity because they are better trained and educated than the average civilian. Y’all think this was a medical imaging center!? You don’t know that! They could have been growing dangerous Marijuana that immigrated here illegally from Mexico to eat the dogs and cats!
Thank God our boys in blue took the time to clear this potentially dangerous building of any possible threats! That MRI machine nearly got one of them until they disarmed and detained it!
Just another dangerous day on the job!
Do you know how racist you’re being right now?
It’s the Haitians who eat the dogs and cats. The Mexicans take all of our jobs.
Get it right. Jeez.
They were absolutely trying to bust an MRI center, but were disappointed and confused when it didn’t mean Marijuana Resonance Imaging
An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.
The shutdown did have to happen (because the cop is a dumbass) but it obviously should have been done by someone who knows what they are doing. The guy should be suspended for being a dumbass and also for leaving his loaded magazine.
The mechanism they are describing here is the emergency one (like if a human is trapped against the machine by something metal and is being crushed - you need to kill the magnet NOW). There is a slower, much safer mechanism for deactivating the magnet that should have been used here but that would require the officer admitting he had made a mistake and asking for help.
Also I just want to point out that the rifle should be considered no longer safe to use unless thoroughly inspected by an expert. In a similar case some years back, the police officer’s sidearm was pulled into the machine. After retrieval it was found that the weapon had been magnetized by the scanner and as a result the firing pin was able to spontaneously release.
After retrieval it was found that the weapon had been magnetized by the scanner and as a result the firing pin was able to spontaneously release.
Just hit it against a table a bunch while shouting “stop being a magnet”.
Also I just want to point out that the rifle should be considered no longer safe to use unless thoroughly inspected by an expert. In a similar case some years back, the police officer’s sidearm was pulled into the machine. After retrieval it was found that the weapon had been magnetized by the scanner and as a result the firing pin was able to spontaneously release.
Something tells me he won’t know that.
well i mean to be fair, if a rifle is ripped out of your hands, and into an MRI machine (which is going to be very loud) and you have no idea on how dangerous/bad for the machine it is. You’re going to hit the (probably) very big and very red button marked “E-STOP”
in fact the operator probably doesn’t even care about this, they probably only care about the raid itself lmao. The damage is just a function of the raid.
The machine is only loud when it is actively scanning a patient which it doesn’t seem like was happening in this case. Otherwise it’s relatively silent. Also the big button is (in my experience at multiple hospitals) always in a different room behind a box that you have to open. My point being this wasn’t some knee jerk reflex where he had the gun pulled out of his hands and he slapped the button. He physically had to leave the room and find the button to do this.
The machine is only loud when it is actively scanning a patient which it doesn’t seem like was happening in this case. Otherwise it’s relatively silent.
yeah well i’m assuming that if the gun was “sucked into the machine” from the hands of the police officer, that it would have probably been relatively violent. Generally magnets aren’t very polite.
Also the big button is (in my experience at multiple hospitals) always in a different room behind a box that you have to open.
yeah i would have to know the floor layout of the specific place in order to make that judgement tbh. That was just my first insight on that one though. There’s a non zero chance he saw it walking in, police are generally pretty observant, and these buttons aren’t exactly well hidden either to my knowledge so.
An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process.
Everything was fine until dickless here shut off the containment grid.
Is that true?
I remember the first time they showed Ghostbusters on network TV. They dubbed ‘nose’ over ‘dick’ in that line…
Yippie-kai-yay, Mister Falcon!
I’ve had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday through Friday plane.
That, at least, was done intentionally as a joke.
LOL, even “brain” would have worked better.
😂
To give some background on this, the huge magnetic field in an MRI machine is created by a superconducting magnet. A magnetic coil submerged in liquid helium that keeps it ultra cold has virtually no resistance, so the electricity can keep going round and round and round like a racetrack without being bled off by resistance. This lets the machine maintain a very high magnetic field with very little power input.
An MRI technician can gradually ramp up or down the magnetic field power by slowly adding or removing current from the magnet. To retrieve the officer’s rifle, they could have slowly ramped down the power with a magnetic power supply while the magnet stayed cold.
When the guy slams the emergency button that does what’s called a quench. It adds resistance to the magnet, which starts turning that power into heat, and that heat boils off all the liquid helium and rapidly ramps the magnet down to zero. This should only be done if for example a patient is trapped in the machine by a metal object or similar emergency, because it damages the magnetic coil and also boils away the liquid helium, which itself is worth thousands of dollars.
LAPD (or more specifically, the California taxpayers) are in for a pricey repair bill.
“Should” be in for a pricy repair bill.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of precedent, up to and including loss of life, where the police “cannot be held accountable because it might impact their ability to do their duty in the future.”
You don’t have to quench a magnet if it isn’t an emergency, field engineera can ramp it down slowly. Jfc what a moron.
you mean to tell me someone who isn’t an MRI tech doesn’t know how to operate an MRI?
That’s weird.
He probably shit his pants at the deafening sound of an MRI machine being quenched, and had to leave quickly to change them.
Yeah, I can imagine someone thinking it’s entirely electrical shitting their pants too a sound of Smaug roaring.
MRIs are entirely electrical right? They just use liquid helium for cooling im pretty sure.
Obviously there are a bunch of mechanical parts as well, that goes without saying i think though. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between mechanical logic and solid state logic anyway.
Yes, you are right, but I meant the safety shutoff mechanism. Normally it just cuts the power to all dangerous stuff or brings it to a safe state. Here it’s not “cutting the power to the magnet”, it’s physically releasing the helium and damaging the superconductor in the process.
yeah, sometimes that’s normal though. In the case of a giant magnet that will literally rip you to shreds if you have a piece of metal in you, that’s probably a reasonable emergency stop procedure.
Unless there’s a second less aggressive emergency stop button that just cuts off the power, in which case this is just a huge fucking shitpost from that police officer
He already got suspended. His weapon was suspended there, on this outside of the MRI machine.
Suspended?
With pay of course.
Then a medal for bravery against a magnet.
Later a promotion after his buddies clear him of all wrong doing.
All this to find some weed. Like why even bother?
Because if they find any cash they will take it, even if there are no drugs!
So very true.
I didnt know they could use the “I smell weed” excuse to raid buildings and stuff now.
Thats just like, the magic words that make all rights disappear, innit?
The Illinois Supreme Court recently ruled that smell isn’t enough of a connection to illegal activity. Weed is legalized there, as well. California apparently needs someone to take up a case.
California has legal weed too.
Does LAPD specifically hire the dumbest dumbfucks they can find? 'Cause if this is their best, well …
Supposedly yes police departments actually do hire people without higher ed
I’ve heard that higher ed disqualifies you for hiring. They don’t want people who can think for themselves.
They’re 1000 officers short of what a city that size should need, and anybody who you would probably actually want to be a cop doesn’t really want to be a cop. Especially in L.A. So, yes. They literally take anybody.
I’m not surprised by the rubber stamped warrant. Cop shops are known to shop for judges that will just stamp off. I’m sure they didn’t mention that it was a MRI business but the odor of weed even combined with high energy usage shouldn’t be enough for a raid IMO. There should be some other evidence, especially in LA where it smells like weed pretty much anywhere.
I’m curious how this will go. I assume LA will settle out of court because they don’t want a precedent set that they actually going to be responsible for private property damage during raids.
I can tell you one thing- the police union won’t be paying.
- “Look out, it’s got a gun!!”
[police open fire for 5 minutes]I forgot that the cop resigned. Good.
Proof that Magneto would win if you bring guns.
Idk, he might still be mentally scarred from that time someone brought a wooden gun.
I’ve never seen this. Legitimately hilarious!
As if the bus station scene in X-man 1 wasn’t proof enough. Leave it to the police to test trusted truths and make asses of themselves.
High energy usage and a smell of cannabis. If they got a warrant for this raid then there was also a judged who fucked up.
“Why would a MEDICAL IMAGING FACILITY have a high power draw? I BET THEY ARE GROWING WEED IN THE MRI MACHINE!”
Maybe it helps people not to move so much inside?
An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.
Don’t forget – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LASD_deputy_gangs
