A Florida doctor accused of removing the wrong organ from a patient, killing him, offered a shocking explanation for why the surgery went so terribly awry.
Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky said his 70-year-old patient William Bryan started to bleed out from an unknown area in the body during a planned laparoscopic splenectomy and the doctor “couldn’t tell the difference” between his spleen and liver “because I was so upset,” according to NBC News.
The 44-year-old general surgeon — who was hit with criminal charges over the death last month — made the shocking admission under oath in November during a grilling by lawyers for Bryan’s wife, Beverly, the outlet reported, citing a transcript of the deposition.
The widow is suing for malpractice and wrongful death.
The doctor said there were complications with Bryan’s procedure that made it difficult and dangerous, including that there was blood in his abdomen and his enlarged colon was blocking Shaknovsky from finding where the blood was coming from.
At the same time, others on the surgery team were performing chest compressions to restart Bryan’s heart, the doctor explained.
“I can’t explain to you what it’s like for a surgeon to lose a patient on a table and how demoralizing it is and how devastating it is,” Shaknovsky said.
“And I couldn’t tell the difference because I was so upset,” he said of taking out the wrong organ.
The doctor also said the incident left a mark on him emotionally that he’ll never be able to shake.
“It’s a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life,” he said. “And I think about it every single day.”
“That was an incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply, and I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky said.
Beverly said in her lawsuit that she and her husband — who are from Muscle Shoals, Alabama — were on a trip in Florida when Bryan landed in the Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital after experiencing stomach pain.
There, Shaknovsky and another doctor convinced him to undergo surgery on Aug. 21 because of an abnormality in his spleen, the suit said.
But Shaknovsky took out his liver instead of the spleen, which caused “immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” the filing alleged.
The doc then had the organ labeled as a spleen and it was only uncovered that it was the liver after Bryan’s death, the court papers claimed.
Shaknovsky tried to cover up the botched surgery by telling Beverly the spleen was so diseased it was four times bigger than normal and claimed it migrated to the other side of Bryan’s body, the suit alleged.
The spleen weighs a few pounds less than the liver.
Last month, Shaknovsky — who lost his medical license — was arrested during a shift as a Lyft driver and was charged with second-degree manslaughter.
Authorities claim the disgraced doc made a series of fatal errors, including switching from laparoscopic to riskier open surgery, citing poor visibility. He then snipped and stapled clumps of vessels around the liver, prompting hemorrhaging and causing Bryan to go into cardiac arrest, investigators claimed.
Despite the emergency, Shaknovsky failed to call for backup and then tried to cover up his error by wrongly labeling the organ as a spleen, authorities claimed.
He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
Shaknovsky faced a prior medical malpractice suit involving the death of a 70-year-old woman who died of sepsis after he removed a mass during surgery. That suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.
Shaknovsky is scheduled to be arraigned on May 19.
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