A Florida surgeon was indicted Monday on a charge of second-degree manslaughter after his patient died during a procedure in which his liver was allegedly removed instead of his spleen.
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, was arrested Monday morning and released on bond, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office. The indictment follows an investigation into the August 2024 death of 70-year-old William Bryan, a Navy veteran and retired boilermaker from Alabama.
Bryan had been visiting a rental property in Florida with his wife, Beverly, when he sought treatment for abdominal pain at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach, The New York Times reported. Diagnostic imaging suggested an enlarged spleen.
According to an emergency order from the Florida Department of Health, Shaknovsky, over the course of three days, “continued to pressure” Bryan to undergo surgery in Florida rather than returning home to Alabama for care, the outlet reported. Eventually, Bryan agreed.
The August 21, 2024, surgery ran into immediate trouble when Shaknovsky switched to an open procedure. Operating room staff told investigators that Bryan began to bleed heavily after the surgeon used a stapling device on a blood vessel.
As Bryan went into cardiac arrest and blood filled the abdominal cavity, Shaknovsky allegedly continued the operation without asking for tools to stop the hemorrhaging. He eventually removed the liver, which staff noticed was the wrong color and on the opposite side of the body from the spleen.
One witness told investigators they felt "sick to their stomach" when Shaknovsky said the organ on the table was a spleen, according to the NYT.
Though Shaknovsky later claimed a sudden aneurysm in the spleen caused the fatal bleeding, an autopsy found no evidence of a rupture and confirmed the spleen remained in the body, entirely intact, the report says.
The Florida Department of Health, which suspended Shaknovsky’s license in September 2024, noted that the surgeon had previously settled a medical malpractice claim for $400,000 in 2023, the NYT reports. In that instance, he was accused of erroneously removing part of a patient’s pancreas instead of an adrenal gland.
In a statement to the NYT, Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital said that surgeons face “rigorous credentialing standards” and must hold a license from the state to practice.
Shaknovsky, “was never a Sacred Heart Emerald Coast employee and has not practiced at any of our facilities since August 2024,” the statement continued.
Beverly Bryan, a retired nurse, told the outlet her husband would have wanted his death to prevent others from being harmed.
“I never even imagined that he wouldn’t come out of that surgery alive,” she said. “Living without him is almost unbearable.”
The pair share two daughters and a son.
Shaknovsky is scheduled to be arraigned in Walton County Circuit Court on May 19. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
