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Two women are suing an Oklahoma hospital after recently learning they were switched at birth nearly 60 years ago.
Tinna Ennis and Jill Lopez have filed a lawsuit against Duncan Regional Hospital in Duncan, Oklahoma, after a DNA test revealed they were unknowingly taken home by each other's parents in 1964, according to The Guardian. Kathryn Jones, who gave birth to Lopez but raised Ennis, filed the lawsuit, that alleges recklessness and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Three years ago, Ennis and her daughter took an Ancestry.com DNA test, which revealed new relatives they've never heard of. Jones also took a DNA test and her results didn't show any connections to her family. The family called Ancestry.com because they thought it was a mixup — but Ennis was able to eventually track Lopez down on social media.
Lopez agreed to take a DNA test.
“I just had to get my emotions straight for a while, because it’s a whole lot to get your mind around. Like, you had a mom and I had a mom, and now I have a different mom," Lopez said when she saw the results.
For Jones, "one of the low points of the whole thing" was learning that Ennis' children weren't biologically related to her. "I felt like I was losing my daughter and my grandchildren too," Jones said.
Duncan Regional Hospital denied the lawsuit's allegations. The doctors involved in Ennis' and Lopez's births have died. According to The Guardian, the hospital's attorneys said the hospital isn't the same entity as when the incident happened — the hospital took over liability for Duncan Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in 1975. The hospital asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, but the judge denied the request.