COLORADO CITY, Colo. (AP) — 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.
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.
“That’s when my mind was just completely blown,” Bylin said. “We could have never imagined that it was an actual birth switch that occurred.”
Morrison said he was convinced as soon as he saw a photo of Bylin's brother and realized they looked very much alike.
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.
A hospital statement says there’s no evidence staff was responsible for the switch.
But Bylin, born Jeremy Morrison, says he still has the hospital bracelet that misidentified him as Kyle Bylin.
Two years have passed since the DNA tests shattered what they thought they knew about their families — including disorienting moments, emotional family meetings and thoughts about the what-ifs.
“Kyle is still my son — that is never going to change,” Evelyn Newton, who raised him as her own, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. “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?”
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.
“We recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families,” Unity Medical's statement says. “Unfortunately, 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.”
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 — Elizabeth O'Toole and Terry Morrison — as his parents. And aside from some challenging times — like wishing he had a sibling to lean on when he was 7 and they divorced — he says his childhood was fine.
“I was loved. I played sports. I did well in school,” Morrison said. “A DNA test is not going to take away 38 years of memories.”
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.
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’s was dark. But her husband had relatives with dark hair, and Newton herself was adopted, so she didn’t know what her own blood relatives looked like.
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.
“You’re just kind of shaking your fist, like, how can this be my family? How am I so different from them?” Bylin said. “It turns out that we’re just totally different people, period.”
Bylin and Morrison have now met their biological parents — the encounters were welcoming but awkward, they said. They have yet to meet each other, but have spoken on the phone.
“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,” Bylin said. “Everyone’s getting to know people that they didn’t know before.”
Such cases are rare, but at-home DNA tests are making them easier to uncover:
Dr. Jonathan Marron, a pediatric oncologist who also teaches at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, says such mix-ups should happen “pretty close to never” nowadays.
“As often as all clinicians, doctors, nurses, social workers, everybody else, gripe about the electronic health records,” the digital backstop is a clear benefit, Marron said.
Attorney Tim O’Keefe 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.
“I know the truth now, but we’re still working to build relationships,” Morrison said. “I mean, it’s not like I can go back in time and rebuild what’s already lost. It’s a work in progress, just like me.”
Susan Montoya Bryan contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Johnson reported from Seattle, Schuettler from Phoenix. Schuettler is a corps member for 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.
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. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Jeremy Morrison, who says he was sent home with the wrong parents after he was born, shows what he believes is a baby photo of him, left, and of the other baby he says was switched at birth while recounting the story at his home in Colorado City, Colo., on Thursday, July 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — First responders in storm-battered Texas again rushed to save people trapped in high waters Friday, as more heavy rain widened the danger from floods that have killed at least two people and left hundreds more in need of rescue.
A week of punishing downpours dumped more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) in some areas. The rain was expected to taper off, but another round of showers worsened already swollen rivers and flooded rural communities near the border with Mexico that had largely been spared major damage.
Near Ozona, a small town about 200 miles (322 kilometers) west of San Antonio, floodwaters spilled over Interstate 10. More than 50 people were rescued by boat from flooded apartments and a water-logged RV park.
A section of a bridge also collapsed over the Nueces River in Uvalde County, where months worth of rain has fallen in a span of days. In Uvalde, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio, floodwaters rushed through Miguel Vasquez’s home twice this week, leaving a layer of mud and knocking over his refrigerator and other items.
Debris was strewn around his neighborhood and a neighbor’s shed teetered over a washed-away section of the property. He said Friday that he'd been caught in the waters' current and nearly been swept away and drowned in trying to get to his house Wednesday.
“I had to grab on with my hands and my feet. You couldn’t swim," he said. "People think that when there’s a flood, you can swim. Swimming’s not going to help you. It’ll take you. The current’s too strong.”
Nearly 1 trillion gallons of water fell on the three hardest-hit counties over three days — enough to fill 1.5 million Olympic-sized swimming pools or supply 11 million homes for a year.
Uvalde County alone got more rain in that period than California has seen over the last month, according to Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
The Hill Country is especially prone to flash floods because the area’s signature limestone is covered by just a thin layer of soil. During heavy rains, water can quickly shoot downhill before filling the narrow river basins.
Emergency personnel across a wide swath of southern and central Texas have rescued more than 570 people, including stranded drivers and people trapped in homes, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Hill Country residents were beginning to clean up after floodwaters again barreled down the Guadalupe River and through communities still reeling from deadly floods a year ago.
Floodwaters on the Rio Grande temporarily closed the two international bridges on the border with Mexico at Eagle Pass, stranding a few people on the wrong side. About 600 huge buoys placed on the river to deter migrants from crossing into the U.S. illegally were set adrift by the rising waters, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said.
Cuellar said about 480 of them were captured by noon Friday. Critics have worried about the damage the buoys might do if they became untethered and got caught along banks and against bridge piers. Each is about 15 feet (4.6 meters) long and weighs 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms).
In the Hill Country, Serena Reyna woke up Thursday morning to find her Kerrville boutique, Nu Accents, covered in debris after four feet of floodwater rushed into the store. She described the store as “a total loss.”
“The floors, I mean they’re soaked in mud and still you know an inch of water in some spots," she said.
The Texas Department of Transportation said high waters closed a 50-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 57 and that parts of the roadway were not expected to reopen until Monday.
In all, roughly 6 million residents across Texas were under a flood watch at various points this week.
Floodwaters had overrun Uvalde and cut off most outside routes, making it one of the hardest hit cities. The waters were receding Friday, and officials said a major highway, Route 90, had reopened.
One person died while driving on a flooded road, swept away near Uvalde, authorities said.
Another victim, 65-year-old John Mark Steward of Kerrville, died after his mobile home was swept into Goat Creek on the Guadalupe River, his wife said. The same river was wrecked by flash floods last year when two dozen children and counselors died at Camp Mystic. Authorities on Thursday said summer campers were safe.
In Ozona, the seat of Crockett County, authorities used seven rescue boat teams to get people out of the hardest-hit areas. They were taken to the local civic center for shelter.
Eddie Martin, the county's emergency management director, said the area received 6 inches of rain after midnight, on top of nearly 10 inches of rain before that.
“We have more and more accidents on the interstate,” he said. “We have more and more water pouring into the neighborhoods where we’ve been pulling people out of.”
Stengle reported from Dallas and Hanna, from Topeka, Kansas. Also contributing reporting were Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas; Michael Phillis in Washington, and Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas.
An aerial views shows flooding on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Ozona, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
An aerial views shows flooding on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Ozona, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A partially-collapsed bridge crossing Goat Creek is damaged following floods near the Guadalupe River on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
Bob Bettes assesses damage to his belongings after flooding reached the Buckhorn Lake Resort RV Park along West Goat Creek near the Guadalupe River on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
Ryder Wade is comforted by his mother Crystal Wade as they assess flood debris and damage scattered across the Buckhorn Lake Resort RV Park following floods along West Goat Creek near the Guadalupe River on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
A police officer walks along the Guadalupe River after a series of storms on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Crews clean up flood debris along the Guadalupe River on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Comfort, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
A police officer walks along the Guadalupe River after a series of storms on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The Guadalupe River floods a crossing after a series of storms on Friday, July 17, 2026, in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
A property's gate featuring cattle is partially submerged with flood waters along State Highway 27 in Comfort, Texas, Thursday, July 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River as floods pass through the area on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
Flooding blocks off G Street along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Joel Angel Juarez)
