Marco Reus and Mario Götze help Borussia Dortmund unveil Yellow Wall MRI scanner
Borussia Dortmund have unveiled a club-themed MRI scanner for children at the city’s Klinikum Dortmund hospital.
The project was brought about thanks to donations from stars Marco Reus, Andre Schürrle, Shinji Kagawa, Sokratis and Sven Bender (now at Bayer Leverkusen), as well as the BVB foundation “leuchte auf” (light up) and the Sparda-Bank West.
The newly designed room on the radiology and neuroradiology ward features projections of the Signal Iduna Park’s south stand – the Yellow Wall. It’s designed to allow children undergoing MRI scans to relax and feel more at ease in their uncomfortable surroundings.
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During the procedure, which can last over 30 minutes, the children have a choice of videos they wish to have projected on the walls around them, including a short film “Heimspiel” (home game) created by local filmmaker Adolf Winkelmann.
“We’d like to heartily thank our long-term partner Sparda-Bank West and of course all the players for their donations. Without them we couldn’t have created this unique project in Dortmund – probably the only one of its kind in the world,” said Marco Rühmann of “leuchte auf”.
The project presented producer Winkelmann with a special challenge to recreate the electric atmosphere of the stadium while also keeping the children calm and still for as long as possible during the procedure.
There was also the added difficulty of how the sound can reach the children as no magnetic objects are allowed near the scanner. That therefore ruled out the use of headphones, so the sound is instead relayed through a complex air-pressure system. This led to the need for Winkelmann to further adapt the sound in his film.
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