Florida Doctor Who 'Mistakenly Removed' Wrong Organ During Surgery Charged with Manslaughter After Elderly Patient Died — And Now Faces 15 Years Behind Bars
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky allegedly removed Bill Bryan's wrong organ, leading to his death.
April 14 2026, Published 6:45 p.m. ET
A doctor in Florida has been indicted for second-degree manslaughter, RadarOnline.com can report, after allegedly removing the wrong organ of a 70-year-old man during surgery, leading to his death.
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky removed the elderly man's liver when he was meant to remove his spleen, according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office, and now faces 15 years in prison.
Surgery Gone Wrong Details
The doctor has been charged with manslaughter.
According to court documents, Bill Bryan and his wife, Beverly, traveled from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, for a vacation at their condo in Destin.
While there, Bryan began feeling pain on his left side, and went to Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast on August 18, 2024, where he became a patient of Shaknovsky.
The Florida Health Department said in its report that imaging on Bryan "revealed a suspected enlarged spleen and blood in the peritoneum with no active hemorrhage."
Although Bryan only wanted to go home, after three days of "repeated pressure" from Shaknovsky, he finally agreed to surgery.
"I tried to convince Dr. Shaknovsky to let me take him home or arrange to be transported," Beverly told WEAR News. "But Dr. Shaknovsky said that Bill would bleed to death if he was moved."
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky's Colleagues Expressed Their Concerns
Bill Bryan entered the hospital with pain on his left side before agreeing to surgery.
Dr. Shaknovsky scheduled a laparoscopic splenectomy to occur on May 21, 2024, at around 4:00 p.m. According to documents from the Florida Department of Health, fellow physicians had reservations from the start.
"Operating room (OR) staff members noted that Dr. Shaknovsky scheduled the splenectomy and were concerned with it being done so late in the day since they only had a skeletal crew," the report found. "OR staff knew splenectomies were complicated procedures that could quickly deteriorate and were not regularly performed at Ascension.
"OR staff (also) had concerns that Dr. Shaknovsky did not have the skill level to safely perform this procedure."
At some point during the procedure, Bryan went into cardiac arrest, and he started to hemorrhage, reportedly causing him to panic.
"Dr. Shaknovsky removed an organ he believed to be the spleen, but due to his shock and the chaos, he was unable to properly identify the organ," the filing states.
'A Grievous Medical Error'
A report concluded the doctor 'pressured' him into surgery.
After the surgery, the doctor said that the patient died of a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm, but an investigation quickly determined Shaknovsky was just trying to cover up his mistake.
"Dr. Shaknovsky's removal of Patient W.B.'s liver is a grievous medical error," the report documents. "Despite it being abundantly clear that the organ removed from Patient W.B. was a liver, Dr. Shaknovsky implausibly insisted that it was a spleen and directed staff to label it as such.
"Even if Dr. Shaknovsky genuinely believed he was removing the spleen during the confusion of the code, once the organ was out of the body, it should have been apparent to a general surgeon that it was a liver.
"The other staff in the OR knew it was not a spleen."
The Doctor's Ugly History
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The victim's wife repeatedly asked about discharging her husband to a different hospital.
This isn't the first time Shaknovsky has been accused of botching an operation. The filing also noted two other instances of malpractice, one of which the board alleges led to the death of another patient.
In that case, the board accused Shaknovsky of removing part of a patient's pancreas during a routine surgery in May 2023, in which the patient was supposed to have their left adrenal gland removed.
Just two months later, Shaknovsky allegedly removed part of a patient's intestine during another procedure, causing a gastrointestinal perforation, in which a hole develops in the intestine.
Shortly after the surgery, the patient was moved to the ICU and died.
