DUNCAN, Oklahoma – A DNA exam taken when they have been 55 decades old has eternally modified the lives of two Oklahoma girls and their households.
Jill Lopez and Tina Ennis, now 57, of Lawton and Hobart respectively, had been born the exact working day in Duncan in 1964. They uncovered in 2019 they were being switched at start at the space hospital, then identified as Duncan Medical professionals and Surgeons Medical center, and put in their life with each other’s moms and dads.
According to court docket files, the swap came to light when Ennis took a 23 and Me DNA ancestry check, but did not come across anybody related to her, like the woman who raised her. Ennis and the woman who elevated her, named Kathryn Jones, of Duncan, together with Lopez, collectively filed a lawsuit in Stephens County versus the community hospital, now acknowledged as Duncan Regional Clinic.
Ennis, who was born Might 18, 1964, found the hospital’s mistake in summertime 2019 after she received the final results of the DNA examination. Soon after conducting extra investigate, which included social media sources, Ennis and Jones located Jill Lopez and believed she might be Jones’ biological daughter alternatively.
Paperwork shows Ennis’ daughter contacted Lopez to give her the data, and Lopez then took a DNA test, which confirmed in August 2019 she was Jones’ daughter, and the people who elevated her — Joyce and John Brister, both of those of whom are now deceased — have been not her dad and mom.
In a joint interview with NBC News, Ennis confirmed she had questions growing up, particularly when it arrived to physical physical appearance.
“I appeared at a picture a person working day, and it was my two sisters and my mother and me, and I couldn’t find something on any of these faces that seemed like me,” she instructed NBC Information. “There was like no resemblance.”
The Duncan Banner was unsuccessful in its makes an attempt to call Lopez and Ennis. Tammy Haines, company administrator and lawful assistant with Smith Barkett Legislation Group, the firm representing the women of all ages in the lawsuit, reported the women are not partaking in even further interviews at this time.
Shown in the suit as the defendants are the estates of R.D. Taylor, M.D., and William Randolph Cheatwood, M.D., both equally deceased. Also named are John and Jane Does, which include things like physicians, employees, staff, and team, alongside with the unknown nursing workers and workers.
Since events involved are deceased, it’s unclear how the swap took place.
The go well with lists the scenario as one of “medical and general negligence, gross negligence, reckless disregard, company carelessness, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of psychological distress, respondent top-quality, res ipsa loquitur and presumed negligence” mainly because Ennis and Lopez were switched at birth and “deprived of any romantic relationship … like, affection, assist and nurturing from their organic mother and father and people.”
The match argues Jones elevated a daughter who was not her possess and was deprived of a romantic relationship with her biological daughter, Lopez.
The accommodate cites devastation, “mental anguish, emotional distress, anxiousness, despair, each bodily and mental soreness and suffering, financial damages and loss, decline of solutions, assistance, and nursing, loss of parental and little one companionship and really like, destruction of the dad or mum-little one romantic relationship, and the deprivation of any parental-baby and familial relationships among instant organic family” as a end result of the switch.
Cyndi Crook, executive director with DRH community relations, claimed that even though Duncan Regional Medical center doesn’t remark publicly on pending litigation, the clinic isn’t the very same entity that it was again then.
“Duncan Regional Hospital is a not-for-gain company that did not occur into existence until finally 1976,” Criminal explained. “The plaintiffs allege in their lawsuit that the births transpired in 1964 at Doctors and Surgeon Hospital, some 12 a long time before Duncan Regional Medical center was even in existence. Medical professionals and Surgeons Clinic was a little, for-profit clinic located in Duncan. Duncan Regional Healthcare facility is not the legal successor to Doctors and Surgeons Healthcare facility, nor was it at any time named Medical professionals and Surgeons Medical center.”
Plaintiffs in the circumstance every request in excess of $75,000 in damages. A movement for summary judgment for the defendant, DRH, will acquire position at 9:30 a.m. March 11, 2022.