Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Switched at Birth
Okay, so I'm back at it. Seventeen-year-old Kassie Hopkins in Illinois knew something was wrong when she looked at the baby the staff wanted her to take home. Say wha???

While leaving Heartland Regional Medical Center, Mary Jo Bathon had a bad feeling as well. But the hospital said this was her baby. Hello! Wouldn't you know?? She'd already spent a couple days with this infant, right? She took the baby home.

Lo and behold hospital personnel had mixed up the babies! Kassie quick got herself an attorney and sued. What an emotional trauma.

The hospital called Mary Jo the same day and left a message on her answering machine. I'd love to hear that one. "Hello? This is Nurse Ratchet. Um, we gave you the wrong baby. Please bring that one back and we'll make an even exchange. Sorry for the inconvenience."

The lawyer wants an investigation. Duh. They're asking 5o thousand for each mother and a jury trial.

How did this happen? Apparently both boys were circumcised at the same time and their ankle tags came off. Someone put them back on the wrong babies. They did DNA testing to make sure which baby was which. Um, they could have asked their mothers.

"We genuinely regret the circumstances surrounding the discharge of these infants," said hospital spokeswoman Staci Bynum. "Fortunately, the situation was quickly identified and corrected within hours, with both healthy babies being joined with their families."

I'll bet they regret that. At least it wasn't one of those nightmares where the truth isn't discovered for five or six or ten years. This is kind of thing authors put in novels and then hear people say it's far-fetched. LOL

3 comments:

  1. I think $50,000 is a good number. Send those babies to college!

    Can you imagine?

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  2. At least in this case, the mom seemed to have a clue about the swap. I know they all kind of look alike when you're sleep deprived, but I prayed I could tell my own from a stranger's baby.

    Well, at least you have a factual plot line to work with. Ha!

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  3. I'm stuck trying to imagine what kind of twisted circumcision knocks off an ankle bracelet?

    The mind boggles

    ReplyDelete