Florida Doctor Charged After Allegedly Removing Wrong Organ During Surgery

Fox News ^ | April 14, 2026 | Brittany Miller

[nickcarraway]

Dr Thomas Shaknovsky indicted for second-degree manslaughter after prosecutors allege he removed a patient's liver instead of his spleen SNIP

The Office of the State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit in Florida announced in a release Monday that Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky was charged with second-degree manslaughter after he allegedly removed the liver from 70-year-old Bill Bryan of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in 2024 during a procedure at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach, Florida. Prosecutors allege the surgery was scheduled to be a laparoscopic splenectomy, a minimally invasive procedure used to remove the spleen, but the removal of Bryan's liver resulted in "catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table."

A Walton County grand jury said the surgeon's actions in the operating room "constituted criminal conduct under Florida law."

"Our duty is to follow the facts wherever they lead, without fear or favor," Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson said in a news release. "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." Available court records did not list an attorney for Shaknovsky. It is unclear whether he has retained legal representation.

[lepton]

Many steps to prevent these but some sneak through.

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Wrong side is horrible, but understandable. Removing a liver is like removing a heart, or a head instead of an arm. Unless that liver was obviously unhealthy, and no hope of retaining some of it, it should not be removed, and if removed, there should be something immediately to replace it with.

[lepton]

The only thing I can see is that the doctor snipped the liver from the blood supply instead of the spleen - which could be done through either method - and the liver was in really bad shape instead of its obviously recognizable form.