{"id":264017,"date":"2026-05-08T22:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/264017\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T22:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T22:14:07","slug":"florida-surgeon-devastated-over-death-of-patient-after-removing-liver-instead-of-spleen-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/264017\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida surgeon \u2018devastated\u2019 over death of patient after removing liver instead of spleen | Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida surgeon<\/a> who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient\u2019s liver instead of his spleen has said he is \u201cforever traumatized\u201d by that person\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

In a deposition from November that was recently obtained by NBC<\/a>, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an \u201cincredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bryan died after the botched surgery; and in April, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,\u201d Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen \u201cduring difficult circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n

The deposition provided Shaknovksy\u2019s first detailed account of the operation that killed Bryan and eventually garnered national news headlines.<\/p>\n

According to Shaknovksy\u2019s deposition, after removing Bryan\u2019s liver, the surgeon instructed a nurse to label the organ as a \u201cspleen\u201d \u2013 and he also identified it as a spleen in Bryan\u2019s postoperative notes. Shaknovsky later said he had been \u201cmentally compromised\u201d at the time of Bryan\u2019s death, explaining that he was \u201cdevastated, demoralized, crying over his passing, felt that I failed him\u201d.<\/p>\n

A lawsuit filed by Bryan\u2019s widow, Beverly Bryan, accuses Shaknovsky of medical malpractice. The suit alleges that he \u201cwrongfully omitted any reference to Mr Bryan\u2019s liver being removed in order to \u2018cover up\u2019 his gross negligence\/recklessness and to hopefully avoid the embarrassment due to such derelict care\u201d, as NBC reported.<\/p>\n

In April, the Walton county sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement <\/a>that Shaknovsky\u2019s actions inflicted on Bryan \u201ccatastrophic blood loss and the patient\u2019s death on the operating table\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky\u2019s deposition testimony described the chaos in the operating room after Bryan began bleeding extensively, causing his heart to stop. Medical staff performed chest compressions, and Shaknovsky attempted to find where the bleeding was coming from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t tell the difference because I was so upset,\u201d he said, referring to the organ he mistakenly identified.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a overflown sink that\u2019s clogged up, and I am looking for a fork at the bottom, trying to feel and find the bleed, and I was not able to do so,\u201d Shaknovsky said. He added: \u201cAfter 20 minutes of struggling \u2013 desperately trying \u2013 to save his life, that\u2019s when the wrong-site event took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life,\u201d Shaknovsky said in the eight-hour deposition reviewed by NBC. \u201cI think about it every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the medical team was unable to resuscitate Bryan, Shaknovsky said he went to the hospital\u2019s medical library. \u201cI went there to cry because I was devastated,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want the staff to see me like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, Shaknovsky said he believed Bryan\u2019s spleen was \u201cdouble the size of what is normal\u201d because of a mass on it. Beverly Bryan\u2019s lawsuit, however, states that a medical examiner told her that her husband\u2019s spleen was anatomically \u201cnearly normal\u201d, according to NBC.<\/p>\n

Shaknovsky would face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 if eventually convicted as charged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient\u2019s liver instead of his spleen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-264017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264017","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=264017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}