Two Men Sue Hospital After DNA Tests Prove They Were Switched at Birth 38 Years Ago

Two men’s identities were quietly rewritten the day a Christmas gift exchange DNA kit came back with an answer nobody expected.

The Associated Press reported on Friday, July 17, that Kyle Bylin, 38, took the DNA test on a whim. The results led him to a biological aunt on a genealogy site, and when her nephew, Jeremy Morrison, agreed to test his own DNA, the results confirmed a shocking discovery.

The two men, both born January 26, 1988, at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, had gone home with the wrong families. “That’s when my mind was just completely blown,” Bylin told AP. “We could have never imagined that it was an actual birth switch that occurred.”

Bylin and Morrison filed a lawsuit against the hospital in state court last week, as per AP.

Bylin said he still has the hospital bracelet bearing the wrong name.

The hospital has not disputed that a switch occurred, but says decades-old staffing and medical records no longer exist, and no one from the original delivery team still works there. In a statement, Unity Medical said, “We recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families.”

Attorney Tim O’Keefe said his clients spent a year trying to settle before suing the hospital and accusing it of negligence and medical malpractice that led to emotional distress.

Evelyn Newton, who raised Bylin believing he was her biological son, told AP, “Kyle is still my son. That is never going to change.”

“But I feel robbed of the life I should have had with my biological son,” she said.

Morrison, now a welding inspector in Colorado, said the mix-up hasn’t changed how he feels about the parents who raised him. “I was loved. I played sports. I did well in school,” he told AP. “A DNA test is not going to take away 38 years of memories.”

Both men have met their biological parents. They haven’t met each other in person yet, but they’ve spoken by phone. “It’s a work in progress, just like me,” Morrison said of rebuilding what was lost.