After repeated attempts, the team could not revive Byran and he was declared dead. Shaknovsky removed an organ he identified as Byran’s spleen and set it on a table. Colleagues said they stared in disbelief at what was plainly a liver; one person reported feeling nauseous.
Misidentified organs
The organ Shaknovsky removed weighed more than 2,100 grams and measured roughly 23 by 19 by 11 centimeters. The health department noted that a markedly enlarged spleen would weigh at most about 500 grams and reach only up to 20 centimeters. Livers and spleens are anatomically different, with distinct colors and textures. The liver lies on the right side of the abdomen, while the spleen is on the left — the side Byran had said was painful.
Shaknovsky insisted the organ be labeled a spleen and returned to the operating room three times that evening trying to persuade staff it was a spleen. A pathology report on the purported spleen described it as “a grossly identifiable 2,106 g liver.”
An autopsy found that Byran’s spleen was intact, his liver was missing, and his inferior vena cava had been severed. The inferior vena cava is the largest vein in the body, carrying deoxygenated blood from the lower body back to the heart through the liver.
While investigators examined the horrific circumstances of Byran’s death, they also noted this was not the first time Shaknovsky had removed the wrong organ. In 2023 he removed part of a patient’s pancreas when he had intended to remove the adrenal gland, later claiming the adrenal gland had “migrated.”
The lawsuit Bryan’s widow filed is still pending. She told NBC News that he would want his death to prevent someone else from being harmed and that she believes the criminal charges now being brought will achieve that; if they had to endure this and he had to die, then at least no one else will be hurt by this man.
