Medical Malpractice • Criminal Indictment • Pensacola Law
A Vacation Turned Fatal: The Surgeon Who Removed the Wrong Organ
A grand jury has indicted a Florida surgeon for second-degree manslaughter after he removed the wrong organ from an Alabama man—killing him on the table. Attorney Joe Zarzaur breaks down what happened inside that operating room.
In August 2024, William and Beverly Bryan came to Florida from Alabama for a beach vacation. They never made it home together. William fell ill, was rushed into emergency surgery, and the surgeon removed the wrong organ, killing him on the table. Now, nearly two years later, the case has captured national attention, a grand jury indictment, and a civil lawsuit that attorney Joe Zarzaur calls the worst medical malpractice case he will ever see.
“The Worst Case I’ll Ever Be Associated With”
Pensacola attorney Joe Zarzaur, who is representing the Bryan family, joined me on We Don’t Color on the Dog to walk through what happened inside that operating room.
William Bryan had presented with severe abdominal pain and was believed to need his spleen removed—a splenectomy. Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky performed the surgery, but he was positioned on the wrong side of the patient’s body from the start.
- The incision was not large. The field was limited. And Shaknovsky was the only person in the OR with a direct view inside Mr. Bryan’s abdomen.
“Dr. Shaknovsky was the only person that had visualization inside Mr. Bryan’s abdomen at the time of the surgery,” Zarzaur explained. “He was a bigger man, and Dr. Shaknovsky’s position over him was such that nobody else could really see what he was doing.”
Working in a limited field, on the wrong side of the body, Shaknovsky removed William Bryan’s liver instead of his spleen. In doing so, he transected the inferior vena cava—one of the largest vessels in the human body—without a clamp in place.
“When he did so without a clamp, there was catastrophic bleeding and pretty immediate death.” — Joe Zarzaur
Not the First Victim
As the civil lawsuit progressed and depositions were taken, Zarzaur and his team discovered that William Bryan was not Dr. Shaknovsky’s first victim.
- A year before this surgery, Shaknovsky had removed part of a patient’s pancreas instead of an adrenal gland.
- Before that, seven or eight other patients had suffered serious complications from routine procedures.
- His practice, Genesis Care USA, had been on notice of these problems since 2020—and let him keep operating.
Zarzaur suggested the surgeon’s motivations may have been both financial and ego-driven.
“I think he personally had an ego such that he didn’t want anybody disagreeing with his analysis. He felt like if he was going to justify being in the hospital as a surgeon, he needed to do surgery.” — Joe Zarzaur
A Grand Jury Steps In
On April 13, 2026, a grand jury indicted Dr. Shaknovsky on second-degree manslaughter charges—an extremely rare move in a medical case. The indictment came nearly two years after William Bryan’s death.
Zarzaur says investigators had a hard time finding what the law required: a credentialed surgeon willing to testify against a colleague in a case that could send that colleague to prison.
“It took that long to find somebody willing to do that—even on these facts.” — Joe Zarzaur
The defense’s position: Shaknovsky has denied all responsibility. His team claims he discovered an unexpected injury to the inferior vena cava and was attempting to save William Bryan’s life—that he believed he was removing the spleen to stop the bleeding and inadvertently took the liver.
- The medical examiner has rejected that account. Removing a liver requires disconnecting up to 25 separate attachment points—far more than the handful required for a spleen. You do not remove a liver inadvertently.
“To take out a person’s liver, you have to do a lot more work,” Zarzaur said. “They said Dr. Shaknovsky basically dissected this liver out of Mr. Bryan.”
Case Background: The case drew national attention after coverage in The New York Times. The hospital has reached a confidential settlement with the Bryan family. The civil case against Dr. Shaknovsky and Genesis Care USA remains active—with the defense denying liability—and both the criminal and civil proceedings are now running simultaneously.
Where the Case Stands
With the criminal indictment now in place, the defense may seek to pause the civil trial—a common tactic aimed at preventing a defendant from having to testify while a criminal case is pending. Zarzaur doesn’t expect that motion to succeed.
- Dr. Shaknovsky has already given a nine-hour deposition in the civil case, largely neutralizing the self-incrimination argument.
- The hospital has settled. The cases now pending are against Shaknovsky personally and his practice, Genesis Care.
For Zarzaur, cases like this are about something larger than a verdict or a settlement.
“It is one of the most rewarding things to see things change for the better and to make everything safer for everybody that’s a patient.” — Joe Zarzaur
