Cataract surgery is one of the most common surgeries out there with 4 million performed per year, but any surgery can be dangerous, especially if your surgeon is playing bingo while conducting it.
According to KUSA 9News's investigative team, that's what cost 56-year-old Bart Writer his life in 2023.
While he was under the knife at InSight Surgery Center in Lone Tree, Colorado, his doctors were playing "Music Bingo," so, as you may expect, the surgeon soon found himself in a lawsuit.
The bingo game, according to court records and deposition transcripts, involved Drs. Urban and Johnson playing mostly '70s and '80s music and attempting to tie the bands involved to ‘B' ‘I' ‘N' ‘G' and ‘O.'
‘So, as an example, if the '70s group the Bee Gees were to sing a song, that would be the letter "B,"' said Urban during a deposition in the lawsuit against Johnson.
‘Were you the one keeping score on Feb. 3, 2023?' asked an attorney.
‘I believe so,' replied Urban.
‘When did the game get started?' asked the attorney.
‘I'm not even sure. It had been going on for a few years, I believe,' said Urban.
It's all fun and games until you have to play the Reaper:
According to Chris Writer, Bart's widow, the doctors had turned off the alarms for equipment during the procedure and were distracted by the bingo game, so they didn't notice that her husband's oxygen was turned off and that his skin was turning blue.
The surgery was supposed to last all but ten minutes, and during that time, Bart died from cardiac arrest.
She recalled: 'We had just talked about what we were gonna do for dinner that night. He just never met anyone that he didn't like and that didn't like him, you know, it's just that's who he was.
'My son is without his dad, his best friend. I'm without Bart, my guy. Yeah, it makes me angry. It makes me sad. I'm sad. I'm mad. I'm just disgusted. I'm just infuriated,' Chris said as she cried.
Dr. Johnson, the one performing the surgery, had known Bart for years, which makes this story all the more tragic.
And now Johnson has settled the case for an undisclosed amount.
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