Two women are suing an Oklahoma hospital after a DNA test revealed that they were switched at birth nearly 60 years ago.
Tina Ennis and Jill Lopez have filed a lawsuit against the Duncan Regional hospital after an apparent mixup resulted in the women – then babies – being unknowingly taken home by each other’s parents in 1964.
The lawsuit, also filed by Kathryn Jones, who gave birth to Lopez but raised Ennis, is alleging recklessness and negligent infliction of emotional distress, according to the Daily Beast which first reported the story.
In 2019, Ennis and her daughter decided to take an at-home DNA test from Ancestry.com in hopes of tracking down Ennis’s estranged maternal grandfather. However, rather than linking the mother and daughter to anyone in their extended family, the test results revealed numerous relatives with the last name Brister, all of whom the pair never heard of.
Jones then took a test as well. To her surprise, the results did not show any familiar relatives and found zero connections to her daughter and granddaughter.
Ennis’s daughter called Ancestry.com’s support line after Ennis assumed the mixup was a result of her not paying the website’s monthly fee.
The customer representative told her that that was not the case and instead said, “You know, you find some interesting things on Ancestry,” according to Ennis.
Ennis tracked down down Lopez in Lawton, Oklahoma, via social media. Lopez, who had been raised by the late Joyce and John Brister, agreed to take a test. According to the the Daily Beast, Lopez’s husband suspected Ennis to be a scammer, but Lopez did not.
When Lopez’s results came back Ennis’s “heart just sank [in that moment]”, she recalled.
“I just had to get my emotions straight for a while, because it’s a whole lot to get your mind around,” Lopez said upon discovering the results. “Like, you had a mom and I had a mom, and now I have a different mom.”
Upon being told the results, Jones initially denied them, repeatedly affirming that Ennis was her daughter. However, after seeing a picture of Lopez, Jones said the first thing that came to mind was, “Where was I when that was taken?” and “I don’t remember those clothes.”
“Because she actually looked just like me,” Jones went on to say. “And it devastated me.”
According to her, “one of the low points of the whole thing” was the realization that Ennis’s children were also not biologically related to her.
“I felt like I was losing my daughter and my grandchildren too,” Jones said.
Ennis’s biological parents were the Bristers, who died many years ago before she got to meet them. She revealed that she sometimes feels a little jealous towards Lopez.
“Jill got to be with my real parents, and now she gets to be with my parents I grew up with. I didn’t know what to think about it at first, but the more I think about it, it makes me really sad.”
The hospital, which took over liability for Duncan Physicians and Surgeons Hospital after merging with several other hospitals in 1975, has denied the lawsuit’s allegations. The doctors involved in the births of Ennis and Lopez have died.
The hospital’s attorneys argue that it is not the same entity as it was when the two women were allegedly switched at birth. Last month, the hospital asked to dismiss the lawsuit due to the changed entity but a judge denied the request.
• This article was amended on 24 February 2022 to correct a spelling error. Ennis’s first name is Tina, not Tinna.
