A man died “immediately” on a Florida operating table after a doctor mistakenly removed his liver during surgery.
William Bryan, 70, from Alabama, was admitted into Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Walton County, after experiencing lower left abdominal pain.
General Surgeon Dr Thomas Shaknovsky and the hospital’s chief medical officer Dr Christopher Bacani persuaded the man and his reluctant family to undergo surgery or he “could experience serious complications if he left the hospital.”
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After being convinced, Bryan agreed and underwent a hand-assisted laparoscopic splenectomy procedure on August 21, 2024.
Midway through the procedure Shaknovsky removed Bryan’s liver, with the surgical cut resulting in an “immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” according to lawyers representing Bryan’s widow Beverley Bryan.
Shaknovsky then proceeded to explain to the distressed woman that her husband’s ‘spleen’ was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual and had migrated to the other side of (his) body.”
(Image: Zarzaur Law)
The liver is typically located on the upper right side of the torso above the stomach, while the spleen is on the left side and roughly the size of a fist, New York Post reports.
Zarzaur Law, the firm representing Beverley Bryan, claims Dr Shaknovsky had a previous “wrong-site surgery” back in 2023, where the healthcare professional supposedly removed a portion of a patient’s pancreas by mistake.
“My husband died while helpless on the operating room table by Dr Shaknovsky. I don’t want anyone else to die due to his incompetence at a hospital that should have known or knew he had previously made drastic, life-altering surgical mistakes,” the widow said in a statement through the law firm.
North Walton Doctor’s Hospital has “disassociated” itself with Shaknovsky, removing all images of the doctor from its website, according to Zarzaur Law.
“We take allegations like this very seriously, and our leadership team is performing a thorough investigation into this event. Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast has a longstanding history of providing safe, quality care since the hospital opened its doors in 2003,” the hospital said in a statement.
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