A Florida surgeon mistakenly removed a man’s liver instead of his spleen, causing him to die on the operating table, a lawyer for the man’s widow alleges.

William Bryan, 70, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, underwent surgery on Aug. 21, at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast hospital in Miramar, Florida, because of spleen abnormalities, according to a statement from the personal injury firm Zarzaur Law, based in Pensacola, Florida.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    How?

    Shaknovsky told Beverly Bryan her husband’s spleen was so diseased that it was four times bigger than normal and it had moved to the other side of his body

    Oh, of course. I’m sure organs do that sort of thing all the time.

    • Shawdow194@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      “This spleen is so diseased it’s in the exact same place as and looks just like a liver”

    • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      I mean, there is an extremely rare condition where basically all of your internal organs are mirrored or flipped from their normal orientation… (situs inversus, roughly 1 in 10,000 people are estimated to have it)

      But…

      If that were the case here, it’d be immediately obvious to any one with basic anatomical knowledge.

      Hope this dumbass goes to jail.

      • superkret@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        Hope this dumbass goes to jail.

        Why? Unless intent can be proven, this is a fuck-up and nothing else. Jailtime would benefit literally no one in this case.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      My appendix was apparently on the other side. It took them forever to diagnose and I lived with chronic appendicitis as a result for over a year. That was fun. It took my ass going septic and going to the ER for them to even bother to run a CT and find the source of the problem. Even when I said are you sure this isn’t appendicitis? No raiderkev, your appendix is on the other side. This is just indigestion. Fuck you urgent care.

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        I assume that in this case, they did the imaging before starting the surgery. Even if the spleen really was on the wrong side, they should have known in advance.