A Florida doctor accused of fatally removing the wrong organ from a patient during a botched surgery was arrested and slapped with new charges over the deadly blunder, according to authorities.
Thomas Shaknovksy, 44, was indicted Monday for second-degree manslaughter after removing 70-year-old William Bryan’s liver instead of his spleen during an August 2024 laparoscopic splenectomy, causing the Alabama man to bleed to death on the operating table, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Our duty is to follow the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor,” Sheriff Michael Adkinson said in a statement.
“The Grand Jury has spoken, and our responsibility is to ensure the charges are carried out through the proper legal process. Our thoughts remain with the victim’s family and their unspeakable loss. We are committed to seeing this case through with the professionalism and integrity our community expects.”
The disgraced doctor, whose medical license was yanked following the fatal screw up, allegedly pushed a reluctant Bryan to undergo the surgery when he checked into Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach with lower left abdominal pain.
Bryan, visiting the Florida Panhandle with his wife, was admitted for further testing after doctors suspected a spleen abnormality but declined “surgical intervention,” wishing instead to go back to his home in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Shaknovsky allegedly urged the patient to have his spleen removed, a procedure in which Bryan eventually relented, according to an emergency suspension order viewed by The Post.
During the doomed operation, the reckless doctor allegedly converted to an open procedure citing poor visibility in Bryan’s colon and abdomen and went on to snip and staple vessels around the liver, triggering a severe hemorrhage and sending the patient into cardiac arrest.
While staff scrambled to revive the patient, Shaknovsky continued dissecting the abdomen and did not call for assistance as he removed the 4.6-pound liver.
“The staff looked at the readily identifiable liver on the table and were shocked when Dr. Shaknovsky told them it was the spleen,” a witness in the operation room said.
“One staff member ‘felt sick to their stomach.’”
Bryan was pronounced dead and the bungling doctor insisted he died of a splenic artery aneurysm.
Shaknovsky allegedly requested staff to label the liver as a “spleen” and send it to pathology.
“The staff in the room felt that Dr. Shaknovsky was attempting to convince them that this is what occurred, even though they witnessed something different,” the order said.
Bryan’s death was later ruled a homicide due to “liver removed during splenectomy,” according to the family’s lawyer.
Shaknovksy was hauled into custody Monday morning and transported to the Walton County Jail, where he is awaiting his first court appearance.
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