Widow: Husband Died After Doc Accidentally Removed His Liver

William Bryan was meant to have his spleen removed at Florida hospital, per wife's attorney
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 4, 2024 10:44 AM CDT
Widow: Husband Died After Doc Accidentally Removed His Liver
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/Shuttermon)

The widow of an Alabama man who died after an organ removal procedure now says that the surgeon who was supposed to take out his spleen took out his liver by mistake instead, leading to his death in August. In a Facebook post, Joe Zarzaur, an attorney representing Beverly Bryan of Muscle Shoals, says she and husband William were at their rental property last month in Florida's Okaloosa County when William felt pains on his left side. Doctors at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast medical center were concerned there was an "abnormality of the spleen" and urged Bryan to have it removed, even though "the family was reluctant," per Zarzaur.

The family acquiesced, however, and on Aug. 21, Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky performed the laparoscopic surgery—except instead of removing the 70-year-old Bryan's spleen, Shaknovsky allegedly took out his liver, slicing a major artery in the process and "causing immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death," Zarzaur noted, per the New York Post. Shaknovsky reportedly labeled the removed liver specimen as "spleen" and told Bryan's widow that the organ "was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual and had migrated to the other side of Mr. Bryan's body," per Zarzaur.

A surgical pathologist at the hospital was the first to realize that the organ they were dealing with was a liver, not a spleen, per AL.com. Meanwhile, Bryan's actual spleen remained in his body, with a small cyst on it, his family says they were later informed. Zarzaur also cites a "previous wrong-site surgery" in 2023 in which Shaknovsky allegedly accidentally removed part of a patient's pancreas—a case that was "settled in confidence," per the attorney. "My husband died while helpless on the operating room table," Beverly Bryan says in a statement through Zarzaur. "I don't want anyone else to die due to [Shaknovsky's] incompetence at a hospital that should have known or knew he had previously made drastic, life-altering surgical mistakes." (More medical malpractice stories.)

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