Alabama Man Dies on Florida Operating Table After Doctor’s Tragic Mistake

William Bryan, a 70-year-old man from Mus­cle Shoals, Alaba­ma, trag­i­cal­ly died on the oper­at­ing table at a Flori­da hos­pi­tal after the sur­geon per­form­ing his rou­tine spleen surgery mis­tak­en­ly removed his liv­er instead.

Doctor Removes Wrong Organ, Causes Immediate Death

Accord­ing to the law firm rep­re­sent­ing Bryan’s wid­ow, the gen­er­al sur­geon, Dr. Thomas Sha­knovsky, tran­sect­ed the major blood ves­sels sup­ply­ing Bryan’s liv­er dur­ing the oper­a­tion, lead­ing to “imme­di­ate and cat­a­stroph­ic blood loss result­ing in death.” After remov­ing the wrong organ, Sha­knovsky then attempt­ed to pass it off as an “enlarged spleen.”

Doctor’s History of Surgical Mistakes

This was not the first time Sha­knovsky had been involved in a major sur­gi­cal error. The law firm claims the doc­tor had a pre­vi­ous “wrong-site surgery” in 2023, where he alleged­ly removed a por­tion of a patien­t’s pan­creas instead of the intend­ed adren­al gland. That case was set­tled confidentially.

Hospital’s Response and Patient Safety Concerns

In response to the inci­dent, the Ascen­sion Sacred Heart Emer­ald Coast Hos­pi­tal, where the surgery took place, stat­ed they were con­duct­ing a “thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion” into Bryan’s death. 

How­ev­er, the hos­pi­tal refused to pro­vide fur­ther details, cit­ing patient pri­va­cy. The North Wal­ton Doc­tor’s Hos­pi­tal also report­ed­ly “dis­as­so­ci­at­ed” itself from Sha­knovsky, remov­ing all ref­er­ences to the doc­tor from its website.

Widow’s Pursuit of Justice

Bryan’s wid­ow, Bev­er­ly, has retained the law firm to seek jus­tice for her hus­band’s death. She expressed her desire to ensure Sha­knovsky no longer treats oth­er patients, stat­ing, “My hus­band died while help­less on the oper­at­ing room table by Dr. Sha­knovsky. I don’t want any­one else to die due to his incompetence.”