The patient's family said a Florida vacationer who had a medical issue died on the operating table after the surgeon removed his liver instead of his spleen.
Alabama resident William Bryan suddenly developed lower left stomach ache last month while visiting the Florida panhandle. He and his wife Beverly went to Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital between Pensacola and Panama City.
His spleen abnormalities prompted doctors to admit him for further tests, the family's lawyer said.
Zarzaur Law P.A. claimed Friday on Facebook that General Surgeon Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Christopher Bacani convinced 70-year-old Bryan to undergo emergency surgery at the hospital or he “could experience serious complications if he left the hospital.
The law firm claims Shaknovsky removed Bryan's liver instead of his spleen during surgery.
The surgical error caused “immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” the law firm said.
The general surgeon mistakenly removed Bryan's liver and called it a "spleen," the law firm says. The liver was discovered after the man died.
Shaknovsky told Beverly Bryan that her husband's “‘spleen’ was so diseased that it was four times bigger than usual and had migrated to the other side of (his) body,” the firm claims.