An Alabama widow is angry and horrified after her 70-year-old husband died on the operating table when a surgeon removed the wrong organ and made a mess cutting into his tissue, leaving William Bryan dead.
Beverly Bryan said her husband felt a sharp pain in his side while they were on a trip to Florida. When they went to the hospital, surgeon Thomas Shaknovsky (correctly) identified the problem as located in the man’s spleen, but Bryan alleges that’s all he got right. It turns out Shaknovsky removed the man’s liver instead, which had nothing wrong with it. Now, Beverly Bryan is calling for criminal and civil charges against the doctor, saying her husband “died while helpless.”
William Bryan wasn’t entirely comfortable getting the operation out of state either, and wanted to return to Alabama to consult with his regular doctor. Zarzaur Law is the firm representing Mrs. Bryan, and according to them, doctors at Florida’s Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital talked him into it. The firm claims that Shaknovsky “persuaded” Mr. Bryan not to wait, warning him that “serious complications” could happen to him if he did.
Well, the most serious complication did occur when Shaknovsky allegedly removed the man’s normal liver, somehow mistaking that organ for his diseased spleen. A post-surgical pathology report called the mistake “grossly identifiable.” Bryan was left with torn blood vessels and bled to death on the operating table.
It is reported that Shaknovsky told Mrs. Bryan that her husband’s spleen was so diseased that it had grown to four times its normal size and had migrated to the other side of his abdomen. An autopsy found that the spleen had a cyst on the surface.
Mr. Bryan had three children and eight grandchildren, and had served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.
Mrs. Bryan made a statement saying she intended to sue Shaknovsky, and accused him of having made a similar mistake in 2023 by removing a patient’s pancreas in error. She said she’s suing because she doesn’t want any other family to suffer what she and her husband did.
