Bits and Bites from Around the World > Florida surgeon removes liver instead of spleen, man dies; 14 y/o school shooter's father charged with murder; Man turns home into USS Enterprise

 

Man, 70, dies after Florida surgeon removed liver

instead of spleen: lawyer

A 70-year-old man from Alabama died on the operating table after a surgeon mistakenly removed his liver instead of his spleen, according to the family’s lawyer, who says there’s evidence that this is not the first time the doctor has removed the wrong organ during surgery.

“Every once in a while we get a case where the facts are so egregious and dangerous to the local public that we feel like we should stop what we’re doing and put out a public service announcement,” lawyer Joe Zarzaur said. “This is one of those situations.”

Zarzaur is representing the family of William Bryan, a resident of Muscle Shoals, Ala., who died in a Florida hospital after he was allegedly convinced by Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky to get his spleen removed, only for the surgeon to take out the wrong organ.

Bryan and his wife Beverly were visiting their rental property on Florida’s northern coast when he suddenly began experiencing abdominal pain on the left side, Zarzaur’s law firm wrote in a press release. Bryan was admitted to Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast Hospital in Miramar Beach and was advised to go under the knife for a laparoscopic splenectomy procedure.

The family was “reluctant” to go forward with the surgery in Florida, but they were eventually persuaded by Shaknovsky, a general surgeon, and Dr. Christopher Bacani, the chief medical officer of the hospital. The two doctors convinced the family that Bryan “could experience serious complications if he left the hospital,” the law firm writes.

During the operation on Aug. 21, Shaknovsky removed Bryan’s liver instead of his spleen, according to a surgical pathology report obtained by the family’s lawyer and shared with media outlets. When an autopsy was conducted on Bryan’s body, his spleen was still in his abdomen and his liver was gone.

When Bryan’s liver was removed, the major blood vessels supplying the critically important organ were severed. The 70-year-old bled out on the operating table and died.

After the surgery, Shaknovsky told Bryan’s widow that her husband’s “spleen” was so diseased that it was “four times bigger than usual and had migrated to the other side” of his body, Zarzaur’s law firm writes.

The liver is usually much larger than the spleen and is located in the upper-right portion of the abdominal cavity, while the spleen is in the upper left.

A pathologist at the hospital later realized that the removed organ labelled “spleen” was actually a liver. Dr. Robert Blanchard wrote in his surgical pathology report that the liver was “grossly identifiable” and partly torn, according to the Miami Herald.

During Bryan’s autopsy, after the error was discovered, a medical examiner found a small cyst on the surface of his spleen.

“The spleen had a small cyst on it that had some hemorrhage around it, but it was not a fatal issue,” Zarzaur told USA Today. “It was a fairly routine-looking cyst. It probably would have been very treatable.”

Was there drugs or alcohol involved in this story? Have you ever heard of a spleen moving across an abdomin? This is hardly believable!

There is more on this horror story on Global News at:

Zarzaur says he has also found evidence

Father of Georgia school shooting suspect arrested,

charged with murder

By Sarah Do Couto  Global News

Posted September 6, 2024 9:48 am

 Updated September 6, 2024 5:34 pm

 4 min read

The father of the 14-year-old suspect accused of killing four people on Wednesday during a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., has been arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder.

State authorities announced the charges against Colin Gray, 54, on Thursday. He was also charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.

Officials said on Thursday the charges were laid because the father “knowingly” allowed his son, 14-year-old Colt Gray, to possess the military-style rifle used in the shooting.

“His charges are directly connected to the actions of his son,” said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, during Thursday’s evening news conference.

2:14

Father of Georgia school shooting suspect handed murder charges

If convicted on all counts, Colin could face a maximum prison sentence of 180 years.

View image in full screen

Colin Gray, the father of Apalachee High School shooting suspect Colt Gray, enters the Barrow County courthouse for his first appearance, on Sept. 6, 2024, in Winder, Ga. The father has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder, and cruelty to children. Brynn Anderson-Pool/Getty Images

The charges against Colin are the most severe ever imposed on the parent of a suspected school shooter in the U.S.

Colt was arrested after authorities said he used an AR-15-style rifle to open fire inside Apalachee High School, about an hour’s drive from Atlanta. He has been accused of killing two students and two teachers, as well as injuring nine others.

The teen has been charged with four felony counts of murder and will be tried as an adult. A potential motive is not clear.

Barrow County District Attorney Brad Smith said the suspect will face additional charges in the coming days.

Prior to Wednesday’s shooting, Colt was already on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s radar.

Investigators said that in 2023, they traced online threats about executing a school shooting to Colt, who denied the allegations. The posts, which authorities said were made to the platform Discord, contained photos of guns.

There is more on this story on Global News at:

The Jackson County Sheriff’s Office

‘I even have a lounge’: Star Trek superfan turns Halifax house into a ship

From James T. Kirk all the way to Philippa Georgiou, there have been more than a dozen captains of Star Trek ships but none is likely more attached to their vessel than Capt. Jay Roach.

The Halifax native has created his own Star Trek ship in his home and dubbed it the Star Trek Acadia.

Actually, USS Acadia.

With Star Trek Day approaching on Sunday, he appeared on Global News Morning Halifax to give Paul Brothers a tour of the Acadia.

“It pretty much will do anything you can do on the show,” Roach said. “And if it doesn’t, give me five minutes and I can make it do it.”

In his basement, Roach has what he calls his “engine room,” where he displays his collection as well as has a few TVs.

This Week's Adventures with Boeing > US Prosecutors recommend charges against Boeing

 

Boeing should face criminal charges for fatal crashes:

U.S. prosecutors

By Chris Prentice  Reuters

Posted June 24, 2024 6:37 am

 3 min read

U.S. prosecutors are recommending to senior Justice Department officials that criminal charges be brought against Boeing after finding the planemaker violated a settlement related to two fatal crashes, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Justice Department must decide by July 7 whether to prosecute Boeing.

In May, officials determined the company breached a 2021 agreement that had shielded Boeing from a criminal charge of conspiracy to commit fraud arising from two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the 737 MAX jet.

Under the 2021 deal, the Justice Department agreed not to prosecute Boeing over allegations it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration so long as the company overhauled its compliance practices and submitted regular reports. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle the investigation.

2:12

Boeing discloses new problem with popular 787 Dreamliner jets

The recommendation of prosecutors handling the case has not been previously reported.

Boeing declined to comment. It has previously said it has “honored the terms” of the 2021 settlement, which had a three-year term and is known as a deferred prosecution agreement. Boeing has told the Justice Department it disagrees with its determination that the company violated the settlement, Reuters reported this month.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment.

The two sides are in discussions over a potential resolution to the Justice Department’s investigation and there is no guarantee officials will move forward with charges, the two sources said. The internal Justice Department deliberations remain ongoing and no final decisions have been reached, they added.

Criminal charges would deepen an unfolding crisis at Boeing, which has faced intense scrutiny from U.S. prosecutors, regulators and lawmakers after a panel blew off one of its jets operated by Alaska Airlines mid-flight Jan. 5, just two days before the 2021 settlement expired.

The sources did not specify what criminal charges Justice Department officials are considering, but one of the people said they could extend beyond the original 2021 fraud conspiracy charge.

Alternatively, instead of prosecuting Boeing, the DOJ could extend the 2021 settlement by a year or propose new, stricter terms, the sources said.

In addition to financial penalties, the strictest settlements typically involve installing a third party to monitor a company’s compliance. The DOJ can also require the company to admit its wrongdoing by pleading guilty.

Boeing may be willing to pay a penalty and agree to a monitor, but believes a guilty plea, which typically incurs additional business restrictions, could be too damaging, said one of the sources. Boeing derives significant revenue from contracts with the U.S. government, including the Defense Department, which could be jeopardized by a felony conviction, one of the sources said.

Relatives of the victims of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes have long criticized the 2021 agreement, arguing that Justice Department officials should have prosecuted the company and its executives.

If Boeing was a Chinese company, the executives would have been dead within weeks of the crashes. That's a bit extreme, but DoJ's actions are just as extreme in the opposite.

At a Senate hearing in June, chief executive Dave Calhoun acknowledged the company’s shortcomings on safety and apologized to the families who lost loved ones.

Last week, the families pressed prosecutors to seek a fine against the planemaker of nearly $25 billion and move forward with a criminal prosecution.

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Catholic Convulsions > Archbishop Vigano called Francis a False Prophet - now charged with schism

 

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò summoned to Vatican for trial over schism charge

JUN 21, 2024 11:00 AM BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò regards the schism charges being brought against as “an honor,” which is understandable, considering that the Church has become a foremost exponent of wokeism, and has in many ways abandoned its Christian tradition, as with its relentless pandering to Islam.

Archbishop Viganò says he faces schism charges

from Vatican’s doctrinal office

National Catholic Register, June 20, 2024:

The disgraced former papal nuncio to the United States, Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, announced that he has been charged with schism by the Vatican’s doctrinal office, after a six-year rogue period in which he called for Pope Francis to resign and labeled him a “false prophet.”

I wonder... did he call him a false prophet, or The False Prophet? 

On June 20, the archbishop posted on his own website a two-page decree from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith ordering him to appear for a trial regarding “public statements that show a denial of points necessary for the preservation of communion with the Catholic Church.”

The decree is dated June 11 and is signed by Msgr. John Kennedy, secretary of the doctrinal office’s disciplinary section, requesting that Viganò present himself on June 20 at 15:30 to formally receive the accusation and evidence against him.

In 2018, Viganò penned an 11-page letter alleging a widespread Vatican cover-up of allegations against ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and called on Francis to resign. Since then, many of the claims he alleged have been discredited, but the Italian archbishop has become something of a hero to some right-wing Catholics for his support of former U.S. President Donald Trump, opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines, spreading of Q-Anon conspiracy theories, and his outright rejection of the Second Vatican Council.

While many mainstream Catholics have dismissed the former Vatican diplomat, he has continued to use his website and social media to promote his radicalized views, with his posts being shared by high-profile individuals such as Trump and being widely promoted within certain pockets of the U.S. Catholic Church. 

In the weeks following Viganò’s 2018 attack against Francis, many bishops’ conferences around the globe issued statements specifically denouncing the former nuncio. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did not and more than two dozen U.S. bishops issued statements of support for Viganò at the time.

In October 2021, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the then-head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, penned a fiery response to Viganò charging him with carrying out a “political frame job” and labeling his actions as “extremely immoral.”

More recently, in 2022, Italy’s military chaplain, Archbishop Santo Marciano, published an open letter to Viganò condemning his spread of conspiracy theories.

In his June 20 blog post, Viganò said he considered the charges brought against him to be an “honor,” adding that Vatican II is a “moral and liturgical cancer of which the Bergoglian ‘synodal church’ is a necessary metastasis.”..

Corruption is Everywhere > And Apparently Rampant in the Biden Family

..

When you are the President of the United States and you want to shut somebody up from telling the truth, you charge him with all sorts of crimes and threaten to incarcerate him for the rest of his life.

‘Missing’ Biden corruption witness Dr. Gal Luft hit with federal charges

By Samuel Chamberlain and Miranda Devine, NYPost

July 10, 2023 8:39pm  Updated

Dr. Gal Luft, a key figure in House Republicans’ investigation of the Biden family’s international influence-peddling, faces federal charges of arms trafficking, operating as an unregistered lobbyist for China, and conspiring to flout US sanctions on Iran, according to a Manhattan indictment unsealed Monday.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York say Luft, 57, a dual US-Israeli citizen who was arrested in Cyprus this past February and went on the run after being released on bail prior to his extradition, agreed in 2015 to let former Hong Kong official Patrick Ho send $350,000 each year to Luft’s think tank, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

In return, the indictment said, Luft agreed to “recruit and ‘educate'” a former high-ranking US official to “make public statements … which were in the interest of China.”

The official is not named in the indictment, but details about his work correspond to former CIA Director James Woolsey, who briefly worked for former President Donald Trump’s transition team after the 2016 election.

Ho similarly is not named in the indictment, but details in the court document match up to incidents in Ho’s life — most notably his arrest by US officials in November 2017 on bribery and money-laundering charges.

Dr. Gal Luft, a figure in the House GOP investigation of the Biden family, has been indicted on federal charges of arms trafficking and conspiring to flout US sanctions on Iran.

Luft has claimed the criminal case is a political hit job meant to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the first family received payments from individuals with ties to Chinese military intelligence and that the Bidens had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their benefactors from the China state-controlled energy company CEFC.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft told The Post in a video filmed in an undisclosed location last week.

At the time of the alleged arrangement with Luft, Ho headed up the China Energy Fund Committee, the non-governmental section of the CEFC China Energy conglomerate which had officers in Hong Kong and Virginia. 

Around the same time, in late 2015, CEFC China Energy chairman Ye Jianming and executive director Jianjun Zang are believed to have met then-second son Hunter Biden for the first time.

Their partnership culminated in a little more than $5 million being wired to Biden-controlled accounts in August 2017. 

The following month, Ho agreed to pay Hunter Biden a $1 million retainer to act as his legal counsel. During Ho’s trial, claims Luft, prosecutors removed all reference to Hunter and his family members from emails between Ho and Hunter associate Vuk Jeremic, a CEFC advisory board member, former Serbian foreign minister and ex-president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Ho — whom Hunter Biden once reportedly called the “f—ing spy chief of China” — was convicted and sentenced March 25, 2019, to three years in prison, after which he was deported.

Days later, Luft says, he met with six FBI and Justice Department officials in Brussels and told them the extent of the Biden connection with CEFC.

Among his claims was that the conglomerate was paying $100,000 a month to Hunter and $65,000 to first brother Jim Biden, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world — and that the money was being funneled through another Biden family associate, Rob Walker.

You would think Hunter could afford to pay more than $5,000 a month for his estranged daughter.

Luft also said that Joe Biden, then the former vice president, attended an early 2017 meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC, with Hunter and officials from CEFC — a sighting later confirmed by Walker, according to congressional testimony.

Luft added that Hunter had an FBI source named “One Eye” who had tipped off Ho and Ye that they were under investigation. (Ye has not been seen since his detention by Chinese authorities in early 2018.)

Luft has claimed that the Biden family took money from individuals with ties to Chinese military intelligence and had a mole in the FBI to share information with Chinese energy company CEFC.

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

“The DOJ says I caused a payment of $6,000 a month to former CIA Director James Woolsey in order to put his name on an article I had ghostwritten for the China Daily newspaper,” Luft said last week of the indictment, which he claimed was filed days before this past November’s midterm elections. 

“Why am I being indicted … for ghostwriting an innocuous article for which I received no payment, let alone from a foreign government, when the mother of all FARA cases, the Bidens’ systemic influence-peddling on behalf of foreign governments, for which they raked [in] millions, goes unpunished?” 

The indictment also accuses Luft of trying to broker deals for Chinese companies to sell weapons to countries including Libya, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates without the license required by US law — as well as setting up meetings between Iranian officials and  CEFC China to discuss oil deals.

Luft is further charged with lying about both those activities during the Brussels meeting with federal investigators.

“I was asked by a bona fide arms dealer, an Israeli friend, to inquire with a company I knew if they had an item and what would be the price of an item,” Luft told The Post last week. “This is where the conspiracy ended. No follow-up, no money, no brokering activity.”

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who was preparing to interview Luft when he disappeared, has said the Israeli remains a “potential witness” in the panel’s investigation despite his fugitive status.

“We definitely want to hear more about his allegations and we want to see the notes from the [Brussels] meeting,” Comer told Fox News Monday night. “They sent six FBI [and DOJ officials], according to Gal Luft, to Brussels to interview him. Obviously they were concerned about something he had to say. There’s some level of credibility here.”

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Bits and Bites From Around the World > Lights Went Out on Blinken and Lavrov; Dr. Gets Small Fine for Amputating Wrong Leg; Michigan Shooter's Parents Charged - on the Run; Homeless Man Jailed on 'Stay at Home' Order

..

Lights go out at diplomatic meetings with Blinken & Lavrov

2 Dec, 2021 15:00

FILE PHOTO © Reuters / Pool

A meeting between US and Ukrainian diplomats was thrown into darkness as the US secretary of state began to speak. A similar incident took place later as Russian and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reps spoke.

A meeting room hosting American and Ukrainian diplomats was suddenly plunged into darkness on Wednesday as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began his remarks to his Ukrainian counterpart Dmitry Kuleba.

Blinken was in the midst of reassuring Kuleba of Washington’s “unwavering commitment” to Ukrainian sovereignty when the lights went out. Their meeting was set to take place on the sidelines of the OSCE conference in Stockholm.

A similar blackout seized the room later that day as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with OSCE Secretary General Helga Schmid and other officials. Lavrov suggested the problem was caused by an official brushing up against the light switch with their rear end.

Blinken is reportedly expected to pile on further threats of sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, should Moscow not cease troop maneuvers along the country’s own border with Ukraine. While Kiev has complained of Russia’s recent military maneuvers, claiming some 90,000 soldiers are conducting exercises near the border the two states share, Moscow has argued that it has the right to deploy troops however it wishes inside its own country.

Too bad the meetings weren't held in Tblisi rather than Stockholm. They could have spent the time singing, "That's the Night When the Lights Went Out in Georgia"!

Surgeon fined for amputating wrong limb

2 Dec, 2021 14:14

© Getty Images / Johnny Greig

In the Austrian city of Linz, the 43-year-old doctor was found guilty of inflicting bodily harm through gross negligence. According to the newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten, the defendant admitted to “making a mistake,” saying that she had marked the wrong leg before the operation began. However, she denied acting with gross negligence, with the defense arguing that the control system in place had failed.

The surgeon was fined to the tune of €2,700 ($3,060) on Wednesday, though she may end up not having to shell out half the amount. The elderly patient passed away before the case was brought to court, and the judge ordered the doctor to pay €5,000 ($5,671) to the patient’s widow in damages for the suffering inflicted on her late husband.

Austria’s public service broadcaster (ORF) cited the judge as telling the defendant she should have “looked a second or third time,” considering the seriousness of the operation. The surgeon has since moved to a different hospital and can still appeal the judgement. For now, both the prosecution and defense have taken time to consider their next moves.

According to Austrian media, the case took place in May, in the city of Freistadt. The patient was an 82-year-old man who had a history of pre-existing conditions affecting both of his legs. On May 18, he was to undergo an above-the-knee amputation on his left leg. When asked in court why she marked the right leg, the surgeon replied, “I just don’t know.”

The team tasked with the final examination of patients prior to surgery also failed to notice the mistake. It was only two days after the operation that the surgeon’s error was discovered when the doctors changed the patient’s bandages. The elderly man, who has since passed away, reportedly had to have his second leg amputated, too.

Of course, he did. For an orthopedic surgeon, a few thousand dollars is a minor slap on the wrist. It must have been a hellish trauma for the patient and his partner to go through.

Health authorities in the state of Upper Austria, where the incident took place, reassured the public that the case in Freistadt was thoroughly analyzed and security training has been updated.

Parents of Michigan shooter Ethan Crumbley, 15, go on the RUN

after being charged with manslaughter

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and SNEJANA FARBEROV FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and SHAWN COHEN

PUBLISHED: 14:47 EST, 3 December 2021

The parents of accused Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley are now on the run from police, just hours after a prosecutor announced involuntary manslaughter charges against them and revealed stunning details about the murder weapon that was a Christmas gift for the 15-year-old, whom police say shot dead four students after penning a disturbing note saying:

'Thoughts won't stop, help me.' 

Police have issued a 'be on the lookout alert' for James and Jennifer Crumbley, who were charged Friday with four counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Tuesday's deadly shooting. The charge carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald alleged that the parents ignored multiple warning signs and refused to take their son out of school just hours before the shooting took place.

Jennifer Crumbley bragged on social media about going out with Ethan to test his Christmas present - a 9mm handgun - just three days before the shooting at Oxford High School, and just one day after her husband James had purchased the gun for Ethan. 

Ethan Crumbly

During a press conference Friday, McDonald revealed stunning new details leading up to the shooting that took place Tuesday afternoon, including that Jennifer Crumbley texted her son about 30 minutes after the rampage saying, 'Ethan, don't do it,' and that her husband James called 911 to report that his gun - a 9 mm Sig Sauer SP 2022 - was missing and that Ethan was likely the shooter. 

The prosecutor revealed that James Crumbley, who - like his wife - had a prior criminal history in Michigan, bought the murder weapon from a retailer with his son there on November 26. He stored the 9mm handgun in an unlocked drawer in his bedroom, McDonald said.

The next day, Jennifer posted about the Christmas present to Instagram with the caption: 'Mom & son day testing out his new Xmas [sic] present.’ Jennifer's Instagram account has since been taken down.  

There is definitely either an element of madness or a demonic influence in this kid's life. If you can't see it in his eyes, then hear it in his words, 'Thoughts won't stop, help me.' There had to have been other signs of his problems in spite of his brother saying otherwise. 

This action by the Oakland Co., prosecutor is going to start a firestorm, but parents have to be responsible for their children. For this massacre to happen just days after getting the gun would indicate that the boy was nowhere near ready for the responsibility of handling one.

There is much more on this remarkable story on the Daily Mail.

Homeless man gets jail time for breaching ‘stay at home’ order

3 Dec, 2021 15:19

FILE PHOTO. Singapore. © Getty Images / Maverick Asio

In a “cruel twist of irony,” a man was sentenced to seven weeks in jail by a Singapore court on Thursday for breaching a Covid-19 “stay at home” order despite being homeless.

Singapore national Rozman Abdul Rahman, 40, returned from Indonesia on March 20, 2020. After an immigration officer insisted he sign a stay-home notice (SHN), he listed his estranged stepsister’s house as a place for him to quarantine – but he was actually homeless.

During the period when he was supposed to self-isolate, he lived on the streets, sleeping in a car park, and later moved to a homeless shelter. He also kept working as a security guard at a grocery logistics company. His manager claimed he was not aware that Rahman was on an SHN.

After being unable to locate him, law enforcement officers eventually found Rahman via his employer and arrested him. He was sentenced to seven weeks imprisonment on Thursday after pleading guilty earlier this year.

Well, at least now he has a home for the next 7 weeks.

“In the midst of a worldwide crisis, Rozman was left with a personal crisis of his own – homelessness. He had no place of residence. He was left to fend on the streets,” his lawyer, Azri Imran Tan, said, adding that his punishment was a “cruel twist of irony.”

He argued there “should be a distinction between those who frivolously go out and breach SHN versus those with no choice.”

While his defense asked for a short detention and fine, prosecutors accused Rahman of deliberately exposing others to the risk of Covid-19, something which could have seen him jailed for up to six months.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Lai Yan called the 13-day breach of rules “almost unprecedented.” Rahman is expected to appeal the decision.

Singapore has had one of the tightest Covid-19 measures in the world with hundreds of people fined and imprisoned for breaching self-isolation rules.