Men sue hospital after DNA tests showed they were switched at birth 38 years ago

COLORADO CITY, Colo. (AP) — Families of the two men who discovered it DNA tests A man who claims they were switched at birth 38 years ago is accusing a North Dakota hospital of stealing the lives they were meant to live.

Kyle Bylin discovered his birth family after testing a house he randomly selected during Christmas gift shopping. This led to her biological aunt coming out on a genealogy platform. Later, his nephew Jeremy Morrison’s DNA was tested. The results were undeniable.

“That’s when my mind was completely blown,” Bylin said. “We could never have imagined that this was a true birth change.”

Morrison said he was convinced when he saw a photo of Bylin’s brother and realized they looked a lot alike.

Bylin and Morrison were the only babies born on Jan. 26, 1988, at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, according to the lawsuit filed in state court last week. Somehow they went home with the wrong parents.

A statement from the hospital states that there is no evidence that staff were responsible for the transition.

But Bylin, whose real name is Jeremy Morrison, says he still has the hospital bracelet that incorrectly identifies him as Kyle Bylin.

Hospital records no longer available

It’s been two years since DNA tests shattered what they thought they knew about their family, including confusing moments, emotional family gatherings and what-if thoughts.

“Kyle is still my son, and that will never change,” Evelyn Newton, who raised him as her own, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. “But I feel like I’ve been robbed of the life I was supposed to have with my biological son. You can’t go back and change 35 years. First steps, driving a car, getting married; how do you make up for that?”

The hospital does not dispute that the babies were switched at some point. It says it is working to better understand what happened but has uncovered no evidence that management or its staff were responsible for the life-altering mistake.

“We recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families,” Unity Medical’s statement reads. “Unfortunately, due to the passage of nearly four decades, medical and personnel records that would have provided further clarity are no longer available and no members of the obstetric team have since remained employed at the hospital.”

This information did not change Morrison’s feelings about the family he had always known. He still considers his parents, Elizabeth O’Toole and Terry Morrison, with whom he grew up, as his parents. And she says her childhood was good, except for some tough times, like wishing she had a sibling to lean on and getting divorced when she was 7 years old.

“I was loved. I played sports. I did well in school,” Morrison said. “DNA testing will not erase 38 years of memories.”

Shocking truth sparks emotional encounters

Morrison currently lives in Colorado City, Colorado and works as a resource inspector for a wind energy company. Had he not been switched at birth, he reflects, he would still be working with his biological brother and father on the North Dakota grain farm where Bylin grew up.

While Newton was raising Kyle with her then-husband Keith Bylin, she said she never considered that Kyle might not be their biological son. That’s right, the immediate family had light hair, while Kyle’s was brunette. However, her husband had black-haired relatives, and Newton himself was adopted, so he did not know what his own blood relatives looked like.

For Bylin, questions of nature versus nurture became more personal. As he pursued his academic career away from North Dakota, he realized that political debates over Thanksgiving dinner were just one part of American family life.

“How can this be my family? How am I so different from them?” You shake your fist as if to say. Bylin said. “Apparently we are completely different people, period.”

Bylin and Morrison have now met their biological parents; They said the encounters were pleasant but strange. They hadn’t met each other yet, but they had talked on the phone.

“We tried to unite as a group and acknowledge that no matter what, there are different ways this can be socially messy,” Bylin said. “Everyone starts to get to know people they didn’t know before.”

Others discovered they were switched at birth

Such cases are rare, but home DNA tests make them easier to detect:

• 1. Two women in 2024 He filed a lawsuit against the Norwegian government He claimed that his human rights were violated after he learned that they had been replaced.

  2. Two men who believe they are changed at birth in 1942 In 2020, he sued a Roman Catholic diocese in West Virginia, alleging negligence and breach of duty by the hospital where they were born.

  3. Tests conducted in Pennsylvania in 2018 revealed that the two girls had switched places about 75 years ago.

  4. In 2016, the Canadian government launched an investigation after DNA evidence showed that two men from a northern Manitoba Indigenous community were murdered. changed at birth In 1975.

Modern technology helps hospitals prevent migrations

Pediatric oncologist Dr., who also teaches at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. Jonathan Marron says such upheavals today should be “so close to never happen.”

“There is a clear benefit to the digital backstop, as all clinicians, doctors, nurses, social workers and everyone else are complaining about electronic health records,” Marron said.

Attorney Tim O’Keefe said he tried to reach a monetary settlement with the hospital for a year before filing the lawsuit, alleging emotional distress resulting from negligence and medical malpractice. Families spent this time trying to get used to new realities.

“I know the truth now, but we’re still trying to build relationships,” Morrison said. “What I mean is, there’s no way I can go back in time and rebuild what’s already been lost. It’s a work in progress, just like I am.”

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Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Johnson reported from Seattle and Schuettler from Phoenix. Schuettler is an affiliate member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. report for america is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.