A routine genetic test received as a holiday present led two men to discover they had been living each other's lives since birth, prompting them to file suit against a North Dakota hospital over an alleged newborn switch that went undetected for nearly four decades.
Kyle Bylin unwrapped a DNA testing kit on Christmas and submitted a sample to a genealogy platform. The results connected him to a biological aunt he had never met. When that relative's nephew, Jeremy Morrison, took his own test, the genetic evidence was unmistakable: the two men had been swapped at birth and raised by the other's biological family.
Both boys were born at Unity Medical Center on January 28, 1988, just hours apart. According to the lawsuit filed by the men and their parents, hospital staff allegedly switched the newborns before discharge without parental knowledge or consent. Bylin retained the hospital identification bracelet from his crib, which bore Morrison's name.
The complaint asserts that Unity Medical Center employees acted within the scope of their employment when they caused the switch and failed to catch or correct the error. The hospital has denied responsibility for the alleged mix-up, though it does not dispute that the babies were switched at some point during their time there.
In a statement to ABC News, Unity Medical acknowledged "the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families" but pointed to the disappearance of medical and staffing records from 1988. None of the delivery team members from that era remain on staff.
Evelyn Newton, the woman who raised Bylin as Kyle, expressed the emotional toll of the revelation. "Kyle is still my son, that is never going to change," she told the Associated Press. "But I feel robbed of the life I should have had with my biological son. You can't go back and replace 35 years. First steps, driving a car, getting married, how do you make up for that?"
Since the discovery, both men have met their biological parents. Bylin described the reunions to ABC News as "welcoming but awkward." The two have communicated by phone but have not yet met face to face. Bylin acknowledged the complexity of the situation for everyone involved: "We've tried to unite as a group and just recognize that no matter what, there's different ways that this can be socially messy. Everyone's getting to know people that they didn't know before."
Hospital baby switches, while uncommon, occur more frequently than commonly assumed. The DNA Diagnostics Center estimates that up to 18 babies per year may go home with the wrong families, though the errors are typically caught almost immediately after birth, not decades later.
Author James Rodriguez: "A Christmas gift unwraps a medical negligence case that makes you wonder how many other families are out there with these dark secrets buried in old hospital files."
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