A surgeon in Florida has been indicted for manslaughter after he wrongly removed a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during an August 2024 procedure.
Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, was indicted by a grand jury in Tallahassee on Monday after prosecutors said he botched the surgery of 70-year-old William Bryan, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
The jury of the first judicial circuit heard that Shaknovsky, of DeFuniak Springs, 120 miles (193km) west of Tallahassee, had been scheduled to perform an operation called a laparoscopic splenectomy on the patient, but instead cut out the man’s liver.
The consequence was “catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table”, according to a press release from Michael Adkinson, the Walton county sheriff.
Shaknovsky was taken into custody in Miramar Beach, Florida, on Monday morning and taken to the Walton county jail ahead of a scheduled first court appearance on Tuesday, the sheriff said.
Court filings, and an emergency order of license suspension by the Florida department of health less than a month after Bryan’s death, detailed how Shaknovsky allegedly insisted that he press on with the operation at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach even after it was obvious he had made a mistake.
“Dr Shaknovsky removed an organ he believed to be the spleen, but due to his shock and the chaos, he was unable to properly identify the organ,” prosecutors said.
The license suspension order signed by Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, said that Shaknovsky told investigators he had not been able to control an aneurysm, which caused Bryan’s chest cavity to fill with blood, “but instead decided to complete the splenectomy in a last-ditch effort to control the bleeding after the patient had been in cardiac arrest for 15 minutes”.
Adkinson, in his statement, said: “Our duty is to follow the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor.
“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.”
Bryan, a navy veteran married for 33 years, and his wife, Beverly, were visiting their rental property in Okaloosa county in August 2024 when he suddenly began experiencing left-sided flank pain, according to Zarzaur Law, medical malpractice attorneys representing the family.
Bryan was admitted for further studies pursuant to concern for an abnormality of the spleen, and was initially reluctant to proceed with surgery in Florida until doctors persuaded him he could experience serious complications if he left the hospital, the firm said at the time.
The lawyers also alleged that Shaknovsky “proceeded with labeling the removed liver specimen as a ‘spleen’”, and told Bryan’s wife after the procedure that the “spleen” was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual, and had migrated to the other side of Bryan’s body.
An “extensive investigation” by the Walton county sheriff’s office, the state attorney for Walton county and state medical authorities followed, Adkinson said.
The sheriff said the grand jury found probable cause that Shaknovsky’s actions in the operating room constituted criminal conduct under Florida law, and returned an indictment for second-degree manslaughter, a second-degree felony.
If found guilty, he faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
No lawyer was listed for Shaknovsky, who also lost his licenses to perform medicine in Alabama and New York after Bryan’s death.
