Bill Bryan, a 70-year-old man from Alabama, died in August 2024 while vacationing along the Emerald Coast in Florida after experiencing abdominal pain. According to Daily Mail, Bryan was talked into surgery to remove his spleen after Dr. Shaknovsky allegedly wouldn't allow him to visit his own doctor back home.
Operating room staff allegedly had concerns that Dr. Shaknovsky didn't have the skill to perform a spleen removal, described as a complicated procedure, and he proceeded with the surgery despite a skeleton-crew medical staff due to the time of day, according to the incident report. During the laparoscopic surgery, Dr.
Shaknovsky allegedly removed Bryan's liver instead of his spleen, resulting in catastrophic blood loss and death on the operating table, according to the Walton County Sheriff's Office. Dr. Shaknovsky said he fired a stapling device blindly into the abdomen to seal an alleged aneurysm and removed an organ he believed to be a spleen, according to the report, and operating room staff later witnessed the liver on the table and were shocked.
Dr. Shaknovsky claimed to have discovered a splenic artery aneurysm that ruptured, causing severe hemorrhaging and death, and at first, he told investigators he was able to control the aneurysm, but in a subsequent interview, he admitted he had never been able to control it and decided to complete the splenectomy in a last-ditch effort after Bryan had been in cardiac arrest for 15 minutes. A medical examiner's autopsy found no evidence to suggest there had ever been an aneurysm.
After a grand jury found probable cause to charge Dr. Shaknovsky, he was taken into custody in Miramar Beach on Monday and remains in the Walton County Jail. The specific evidence that led the grand jury to find probable cause for manslaughter charges and any disciplinary actions against Dr.
Shaknovsky by medical boards have not been disclosed.