{"id":531704,"date":"2026-07-18T03:50:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/531704\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T03:50:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:50:15","slug":"men-discover-they-were-switched-at-birth-38-years-ago-after-dna-tests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/531704\/","title":{"rendered":"Men discover they were switched at birth 38 years ago after DNA tests"},"content":{"rendered":"

The families of two men who discovered through DNA tests that they were switched at birth 38 years ago are accusing a North Dakota hospital of robbing them of the lives they were supposed to lead.<\/p>\n

Kyle Bylin discovered his birth family after taking an at-home test he chose randomly during a Christmas gift exchange. That led to his biological aunt on a genealogy platform. Her nephew, Jeremy Morrison, then had his DNA tested. The results were irrefutable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when my mind was just completely blown,\u201d Bylin said. \u201cWe could never have imagined that it was an actual birth switch that occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This photo provided by the family shows Kyle Bylin with a computer in the 1990s (Keith Bylin\/Kyle Bylin via AP)<\/p>\n

Morrison said he was convinced as soon as he saw a photo of Bylin’s brother and realised they looked very much alike.<\/p>\n

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

A hospital statement says there\u2019s no evidence staff were responsible for the switch.<\/p>\n

But Bylin, born Jeremy Morrison, says he still has the hospital bracelet that misidentified him as Kyle Bylin.<\/p>\n

The hospital records no longer exist<\/p>\n

\"Jeremy<\/p>\n

Jeremy Morrison, who says he was sent home with the wrong parents after he was born, poses for a portrait outside his home in Colorado City, Colo., Thursday, July 16, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Two years have passed since the DNA tests shattered what they thought they knew about their families \u2014 including disorienting moments, emotional family meetings and thoughts about the what-ifs.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle is still my son \u2014 that is never going to change,\u201d Evelyn Newton, who raised him as her own, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. \u201cBut 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 \u2014 how do you make up for that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The hospital doesn’t dispute that the babies were switched at some point. It says it’s working to better understand what happened, but has uncovered no evidence that its administration or staff were responsible for the lives-altering error.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families,\u201d Unity Medical’s statement says. \u201cUnfortunately, because of the passage of nearly four decades, the medical and staffing records that might have provided additional clarity no longer exist, and no members of the delivery team from that time are still employed by the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

The knowledge hasn’t changed the way Morrison feels about the family he’s always known. He still thinks of the parents he grew up with \u2014 Elizabeth O’Toole and Terry Morrison \u2014 as his parents. And aside from some challenging times \u2014 like wishing he had a sibling to lean on when he was 7, and they divorced \u2014 he says his childhood was fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was loved. I played sports. I did well in school,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cA DNA test is not going to take away 38 years of memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shocking truth led to emotional encounters<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This photo provided by Kyle Bylin shows him with his biological mother, Liz O’Toole, April 4, 2025 (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Morrison now lives in Colorado City, Colorado, and works as a welding inspector for a wind energy company. Had he not been switched at birth, he figures he’d still be with his biological brother and father, working on the North Dakota grain farm where Bylin grew up.<\/p>\n

Newton said she never had any thought that Kyle might not be their biological son as she and her then-husband, Keith Bylin, were raising him. True, the immediate family had light hair, and Kyle\u2019s was dark. But her husband had relatives with dark hair, and Newton herself was adopted, so she didn\u2019t know what her own blood relatives looked like.<\/p>\n

For Bylin, questions about nature versus nurture have become more personal. As he pursued an academic career far from North Dakota, he figured the political debates over Thanksgiving dinner were just a staple of American family life.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re just kind of shaking your fist, like, how can this be my family? How am I so different from them?\u201d Bylin said. \u201cIt turns out that we\u2019re just totally different people, period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bylin and Morrison have now met their biological parents \u2014 the encounters were welcoming but awkward, they said. They have yet to meet each other, but have spoken on the phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve tried to unite as a group and just recognise that no matter what, there are different ways that this can be socially messy,\u201d Bylin said. \u201cEveryone\u2019s getting to know people that they didn\u2019t know before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others have discovered they were switched at birth<\/p>\n

Such cases are rare, but at-home DNA tests are making them easier to uncover:<\/p>\n

1. In 2024, two women sued the government of Norway alleging a breach of human rights after discovering they had been switched.<\/p>\n

2. Two men who believe they were switched at birth in 1942 sued a Roman Catholic diocese in West Virginia in 2020, alleging negligence and breach of duty by the hospital where they were born.<\/p>\n

3. In 2018 in Pennsylvania, testing revealed that two girls had been switched some 75 years earlier.<\/p>\n

4. In 2016, the Canadian government launched an investigation after DNA evidence indicated two men from a northern Manitoba Indigenous community were switched at birth in 1975.<\/p>\n

5. In 2024, two women sued the government of Norway alleging a breach of human rights after discovering they had been switched.<\/p>\n

Modern tech helps hospitals prevent switches<\/p>\n

Dr Jonathan Marron, a paediatric oncologist who also teaches at Harvard Medical School\u2019s Center for Bioethics, says such mix-ups should happen \u201cpretty close to never\u201d nowadays.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs often as all clinicians, doctors, nurses, social workers, everybody else, gripe about the electronic health records,\u201d the digital backstop is a clear benefit, Marron said.<\/p>\n

Attorney Tim O\u2019Keefe said he tried for a year to reach a monetary settlement with the hospital before filing a lawsuit claiming emotional distress due to negligence and medical malpractice. The families have spent this time adjusting to new realities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the truth now, but we\u2019re still working to build relationships,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s not like I can go back in time and rebuild what\u2019s already lost. It\u2019s a work in progress, just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The families of two men who discovered through DNA tests that they were switched at birth 38 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,134,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-531704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}