A Florida surgeon facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has expressed deep remorse, stating he is “forever traumatized” by the incident. Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, provided his first detailed account of the fatal operation in a November deposition recently obtained by NBC News.
Details of the Botched Surgery
The surgery, which resulted in the death of 70-year-old William Bryan, occurred at a hospital in Walton County. In April, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. During the deposition, Shaknovsky described the event as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply,” adding, “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it.” He acknowledged that wrong-site surgeries can occur “during difficult circumstances.”
According to the deposition, after removing Bryan’s liver, Shaknovsky instructed a nurse to label the organ as a “spleen” and identified it as such in postoperative notes. He later claimed he had been “mentally compromised” at the time, stating he was “devastated, demoralized, crying over his passing, felt that I failed him.”
Legal and Medical Allegations
A lawsuit filed by Bryan’s widow, Beverly Bryan, accuses Shaknovsky of medical malpractice. The suit alleges that he “wrongfully omitted any reference to Mr. Bryan’s liver being removed in order to ‘cover up’ his gross negligence/recklessness and to hopefully avoid the embarrassment due to such derelict care,” as reported by NBC. In April, the Walton County Sheriff’s Office stated that Shaknovsky’s actions caused “catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table.”
Shaknovsky’s deposition testimony described the chaos in the operating room after Bryan began bleeding extensively, leading to cardiac arrest. Medical staff performed chest compressions as Shaknovsky attempted to locate the source of bleeding. “I couldn’t tell the difference because I was so upset,” he said, referring to the organ he mistakenly removed. He likened the situation to “an overflown sink that’s clogged up, and I am looking for a fork at the bottom, trying to feel and find the bleed, and I was not able to do so.” After 20 minutes of struggling to save Bryan’s life, the wrong-site event occurred. “It’s a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life,” Shaknovsky said. “I think about it every single day.”
Following the unsuccessful resuscitation attempt, Shaknovsky went to the hospital’s medical library. “I went there to cry because I was devastated,” he explained. “I didn’t want the staff to see me like that.”
Discrepancies in Organ Size
Despite a spleen typically being much smaller than a liver, Shaknovsky claimed he believed Bryan’s spleen was “double the size of what is normal” due to a mass. However, Beverly Bryan’s lawsuit states that a medical examiner informed her that her husband’s spleen was anatomically “nearly normal,” according to NBC.
If convicted, Shaknovsky faces up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
