US surgeons play music bingo game during eye surgery, patient dies from cardiac arrest

Patient dies during surgery in US while surgeons play music bingo game, widow files lawsuit

A patient died during a surgery in the United States (US) after the surgeons played a music bingo game with vital signs alarms turned off.

On 3 February 2023, 56-year-old Bart Writer entered InSight Surgery Center in the state of Colorado for a cataract surgery.

Due to the routine and nature of such a surgery, the medical staff told Mr Writer’s wife, Chris, that she could leave and they would call her afterwards.

Ms Writer later received a call from the surgeon, Dr Starck Johnson, asking her to come over to the car park. When they met, he informed her that Bart had died from cardiac arrest.

“It just didn’t make sense. Bart was 56. I mean, we skied every weekend. We bike together, we hike together,” Ms Writer said.

Investigators concluded the death was an accident, but Ms Writer subsequently received a tip from a doctor on what happened that day.

Surgeon & anaesthesiologist play music bingo game during surgery

At 12.48pm, anaesthesiologist Dr Michael Urban placed Bart Writer under anaesthesia. He was covered with a drape so that only the eye they were operating on was visible.

Surgery commenced at 1.05pm, and both Dr Johnson and Dr Urban played a music bingo game during it, an allegedly routine act.

Dr Urban’s phone would play songs and the doctors would categorise them as a game. If a song from a group such as the ‘Bees Gees’ played, they would count that as the letter B.

The music would play until they got all the letters needed to make a ‘BINGO.’

Ms Writer learnt from nurses that the surgical team would frequently switch off the audible alarms from machines monitoring the patients’ vital signs.

The vital signs monitors had been positioned in such a way that only Dr Urban could see them.

With the alleged music bingo distraction, the lack of audible alarms, and Mr Writer’s body being covered, nobody initially noticed his skin turning blue from a lack of oxygen.

It took the operating room staff 11 minutes before they finally noticed the abnormal vital signs, too late to save the patient.

Surgeon blames anaesthesiologist for fatal medical incident

Ms Writer sued Dr Johnson, who recently settled the case for an undisclosed amount.

Dr Johnson blamed Dr Urban for silencing the alarms without notifying anyone else. He claimed the anaesthesiologist wasn’t paying attention to the patient’s vital signs.

“Dr Urban stands by his care and treatment of Mr Writer and disagrees with the surgeon’s characterisations of the events of that day,” said an attorney for Dr Urban.

Infuriated widow mourns husband’s death

A heartbroken Chris Writer mourned the death of her husband of 23 years.

“We had just talked about what we were gonna do for dinner that night,” she said.

“My son is without his best friend. I’m without Bart, my guy. Yeah, it makes me angry. It makes me sad,” Ms Writer said, tearing up, “I’m just disgusted. I’m just infuriated.”

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Featured image adapted from 9NEWS on YouTube.