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A doctor has been charged with the death of a patient after allegedly removing the incorrect organ during surgery.

Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky, 44, said his patient William Bryan, 70, started to bleed from an unknown area in the body during a planned laparoscopic splenectomy, a surgery whereby one's spleen is removed.

The doctor said that he "couldn't tell the difference" between his spleen and liver "because I was so upset," NBC News reported.

Shaknovsky was dealt criminal charges over the death last month. He made an admission under oath in November during a grilling by lawyers for Bryan's wife, Beverly, citing a transcript of the deposition.

Shaknovsky said there were complications with Bryan's procedure that made it difficult and dangerous. This included blood in his abdomen and an enlarged colon, which blocked Shaknovsky from finding where the blood was coming from.

Others on the surgery team were performing chest compressions to restart Bryan's heart at the same time.

"I can't explain to you what it's like for a surgeon to lose a patient on a table and how demoralizing it is and how devastating it is," Shaknovsky said.

"And I couldn't tell the difference because I was so upset," he said of taking out the wrong organ.

"It's a devastating thing, which I will have to live with the rest of my life," he said. "And I think about it every single day."

"That was an incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply, and I'm forever traumatized by it and hurt by it," Shaknovsky said.

Beverly and her husband were on a trip in Florida when Bryan landed up in the Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital after experiencing stomach pain.

Shaknovsky and another doctor convinced him to undergo surgery on August 21 due to an abnormality in his spleen, the law suit said.

But Shaknovsky took out his liver instead of the spleen. This caused "immediate and catastrophic blood loss resulting in death," the filing alleged.

The doctor then had the organ labelled as a spleen and it was only uncovered that it was the liver after Bryan's death, the court papers claimed.

Shaknovsky tried to cover up the error by telling Beverly the spleen was so diseased it was four times larger than normal and claimed it migrated to the other side of Bryan's body, the suit alleged.

The spleen weighs a few pounds less than the liver.

Shaknovsky lost his medical license and was last month arrested during a shift as a Lyft driver. He was charged with second-degree manslaughter.

Authorities claim the doctor made a series of fatal errors, including switching from laparoscopic to riskier open surgery, citing poor visibility. He then snipped and stapled clumps of vessels around the liver, prompting hemorrhaging and causing Bryan to go into cardiac arrest, investigators claimed.

Despite the emergency, Shaknovsky failed to call for backup and then tried to cover up his error by wrongly labelling the organ as a spleen, authorities claimed.

He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Shaknovsky faced a prior medical malpractice suit involving the death of a 70-year-old woman who died of sepsis after he removed a mass during surgery. That suit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

Shaknovsky is scheduled to be arraigned on May 19.