Florida Doctor Charged with Manslaughter After Removing Wrong Organ

A Florida surgeon has been arrested on manslaughter charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during a 2024 operation, causing the man to bleed to death on the table.

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky of Destin was performing a laparoscopic splenectomy on 70-year-old William Bryan of Alabama when the fatal error allegedly occurred. An autopsy later revealed Bryan’s spleen was intact — his liver was gone.

Bryan’s wife, Beverly, said she had wanted to take her husband home to Alabama rather than have surgery in Florida, but Shaknovsky told her he would not survive the trip. After the operation, she says he told her a splenic aneurysm had caused the bleeding. The autopsy told a different story.

A Walton County grand jury found probable cause for a second-degree manslaughter charge. Florida’s surgeon general had already suspended Shaknovsky’s license in 2024. His Alabama and New York licenses were subsequently suspended as well. Alabama regulators also accused him of two additional malpractice incidents — one involving the removal of part of a patient’s pancreas during a routine adrenal surgery, another involving an intestinal perforation.

Shaknovsky faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.