It's horrible when you get under the knife of a surgeon who doesn't know their body parts, but that is what allegedly happened to a man who needed his spleen removed — only to die losing his liver instead.
The horrific mixup reportedly occurred last month, when 70-year-old William Bryan from Alabama was visiting Florida. After feeling pains on the left side of his abdomen, he went to Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast hospital in Walton county, where doctors told him removing his spleen was the best course of action.
What the Florida doctors didn't tell him, however, is that the surgeon in charge, Dr Thomas Shaknovsky, had been accused in 2023 of mistaking body parts, or "wrong-site surgery," according to the victim's family attorney, Joe Zarzaur. Dr. Shaknovsy "accidentally took out a portion of someone's pancreas, intending to take out one of the their adrenal glands," he says in video (see below).
Nevertheless, the surgeon reportedly proceeded to cut into Bryan — seemingly on the wrong side of his abdomen. And then he removed what he thought was the spleen, even though, as he allegedly told the patient's wife of 33 years, it "was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual."
The hospital now claims it takes "allegations like this very seriously," even though, according to the attorney via USA Today, it reportedly knew of the man's previous organ mixup. If the accusations against the surgeon are all accurate, why the doctor was allowed to step into an operating room is beyond imagination.
From The Guardian:
During the operation, the family's lawyer alleges that the doctor removed Bryan's liver and, in so doing, "transected the major vasculature supplying the liver, causing immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death".
The surgeon, the family alleges, "proceeded with labeling the removed liver specimen as a 'spleen', and it wasn't until following the death that it was identified that the organ removed was actually Bryan's liver, as opposed to the spleen"…
"The family was informed that Bryan's spleen, the root of his original symptom profile upon presentation to the hospital, was still in his body and appeared with a small cyst on its surface." …
In a statement, Beverly said: "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."
"This doctor was still treating patients, and apparently still had access to hospitals and operating rooms, which I don't think he should," Zarzaur said in video posted four days ago. But in a newer video, he said one the hospitals the doctor works at, North Walton Doctor's hospital, "made an excellent decision to disassociate themselves" from Shaknovsky.
Previously: Surgeon punches patient during operation
