On June 14 at Logan (W.Va.) Regional Medical Center, two families were given the wrong babies due to incomplete name tags, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
When Barbara Colegrove arrived at the hospital to visit her daughter, Crystal Perry, and her newborn grandson, her son-in-law Andrew "Junior" Perry went to the nursery to get the newborn, Dawson Perry, for the family to hold.
"He went to the nursery and there [Dawson's] basket was, lying in the same spot it had been. It said 'Perry' on the card, but nothing else was filled out on the card. Not the height, not the weight, it just said Perry,” Ms. Perry told the Charleston Gazette-Mail. "He noticed on the card it said number five, and our baby had been in number four. ... He told the nurse, 'Why is he in a baby cart that says number five?' She said, 'Oh that’s fine, that's your baby.' He thought it was because all he saw was his blonde hair. She just walked over there with a Sharpie marker and crossed off [Room] 205 and wrote 204."
For the next two hours, Colegrove and her other daughter held the baby they thought was Dawson.
Mr. Perry started looking through the drawers on the cart to find milk to feed his son, and noticed the onesies and other supplies inside didn't look familiar, Ms. Perry told the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
Then a nurse came in and asked for the number on Ms. Perry's arm band. When she realized it was 204 and not 205, she left and returned with the Perrys' baby, Dawson.
The Perrys were given the wrong baby due to there being another family in the hospital with the last name Perry. Crystal and Junior Perry's relatives had been holding Colton Perry, the newborn son of Heather Perry, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
"I don't think he was in there for a couple hours, I think it was just a couple seconds," Heather Perry said in a telephone interview. "I haven't heard anything about [them taking pictures with Colton]."
Crystal Perry warned other parents about potential baby mix-ups. "I've had three other kids. Anytime I've been in the hospital, any single time that they bring your baby in, a nurse brings them in and they ask you to read your arm band. Then, they check the baby's arm band, which is usually on their foot," she said. "That never happened one single time."
The hospital's spokesperson was unable to confirm or disclose particular information about the event due to patient privacy.
Both Dawson and Colton have been returned to the right families and discharged from the hospital.
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