The liver is huge compared to the spleen and it is also very solid when compared to the spleen.
The liver has two lobes and neither one could be removed laparoscopically in one piece.
This why I believe the entire operating team should be held responsible for this tragedy.
The team had to know that the operation being performed was not the operation they had be briefed to perform.
Someone on the team should have stopped this operation.
Do you think some of them were scared to contradict a doctor?
The surgical report is linked above. The article is written negligently not just poorly.
The surgeon did not just remove the wrong organ.
There was a cascade of complications that were not handled properly and things went from bad to worse. A medical disaster by someone who should not have been practicing surgery.
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.