{"id":262818,"date":"2026-05-08T00:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/262818\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T00:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:59:09","slug":"florida-surgeons-shocking-excuse-for-removing-the-wrong-organ-from-patient-killing-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/262818\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida surgeon’s shocking excuse for removing the wrong organ from patient, killing him"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida doctor accused of removing the wrong organ from a patient, killing him, offered a shocking explanation for why the surgery went so terribly awry.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky said his 70-year-old patient William Bryan started to bleed out from an unknown area in the body during a planned laparoscopic splenectomy and the doctor \u201ccouldn\u2019t tell the difference\u201d between his spleen and liver \u201cbecause I was so upset,\u201d according to NBC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old general surgeon \u2014 who was hit with criminal charges<\/a> over the death last month \u2014 made the shocking admission under oath in November during a grilling by lawyers for Bryan\u2019s wife, Beverly, the outlet reported, citing a transcript of the deposition.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky offered a wild explanation for why he removed the wrong organ from William Bryan, killing him. Walton County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

The widow is suing for malpractice and wrongful death.<\/p>\n

The doctor said there were complications with Bryan\u2019s procedure that made it difficult and dangerous, including that there was blood in his abdomen and his enlarged colon was blocking Shaknovsky from finding where the blood was coming from.<\/p>\n

At the same time, others on the surgery team were performing chest compressions to restart Bryan\u2019s heart, the doctor explained.<\/p>\n

William Bryan died in 2024 after the botched surgery. Family handout<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t explain to you what it\u2019s like for a surgeon to lose a patient on a table and how demoralizing it is and how devastating it is,\u201d Shaknovsky said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I couldn\u2019t tell the difference because I was so upset,\u201d he said of taking out the wrong organ.<\/p>\n

The doctor also said the incident left a mark on him emotionally that he\u2019ll never be able to shake.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky is being sued by Bryan\u2019s wife, Beverly, and he was arrested last month for the death. Family handout<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think about it every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was an incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply, and I\u2019m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,\u201d Shaknovsky said.<\/p>\n

Beverly said in her lawsuit that she and her husband \u2014 who are from Muscle Shoals, Alabama \u2014 were on a trip in Florida when Bryan landed in the Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital after experiencing stomach pain.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky said during a deposition in the widow\u2019s case that he was so upset that he mixed up the spleen with the liver. Zarzaur Law<\/p>\n

There, Shaknovsky and another doctor convinced him to undergo surgery on Aug. 21 because of an abnormality in his spleen, the suit said.<\/p>\n

But Shaknovsky took out his liver instead of the spleen, which caused \u201cimmediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,\u201d the filing alleged.<\/p>\n

The doc then had the organ labeled as a spleen and it was only uncovered that it was the liver after Bryan\u2019s death, the court papers claimed.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky tried to cover up the botched surgery by telling Beverly the spleen was so diseased it was four times bigger than normal and claimed it migrated to the other side of Bryan\u2019s body, the suit alleged.<\/p>\n

The spleen weighs a few pounds less than the liver.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky \u2014 who was stripped of his medical license \u2014 was arrested while driving for Lyft last month. Walton County Sheriff\u0092s Office<\/p>\n

Last month, Shaknovsky \u2014 who lost his medical license \u2014 was arrested during a shift as a Lyft<\/a> driver and was charged with second-degree manslaughter.<\/p>\n

Authorities claim the disgraced doc made a series of fatal errors, including switching from laparoscopic to riskier open surgery, citing poor visibility. He then snipped and stapled clumps of vessels around the liver, prompting hemorrhaging and causing Bryan to go into cardiac arrest, investigators claimed.<\/p>\n

Despite the emergency, Shaknovsky failed to call for backup and then tried to cover up his error by wrongly labeling the organ as a spleen, authorities claimed.<\/p>\n

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky faced a prior medical malpractice suit involving the death of a 70-year-old woman who died of sepsis after he removed a mass during surgery. That suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky is scheduled to be arraigned on May 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida doctor accused of removing the wrong organ from a patient, killing him, offered a shocking explanation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4864,2992,28,30,29,113384,4137,113385,4278],"class_list":["post-262818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-arrests","tag-doctors","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-human-organs","tag-lawsuits","tag-medical-mishaps","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}