Source: AP -- Read Full Story

Sitting in her hospital room in Marion, Ill., 17-year-old Kassie Hopkins knew something was wrong when she looked at the newborn officials told her she had given birth to a day before. Mary Jo Bathon had the same feeling but left Heartland Regional Medical Center with the hospital's assurance that the baby she had was her son. She headed home to Pinckeyville, an hour away, making a stop to buy baby supplies. But in fact, hospital workers had inadvertently switched the babies. They sent Bathon home with Hopkins' son, leaving 17-year-old Hopkins in her hospital room, worried about her son's whereabouts, attorney John Womick said Friday after suing on the women's behalf in Williamson County Court. "Kassie, she's having trouble communicating how she feels," Womick said Friday. "All she can do pretty much is cry. She's now paranoid. She's very concerned about something happening to her baby." The hospital realized the mix-up and called Bathon at home the same day, March 28, and left a message on her answering machine asking her to return to Marion to retrieve her real son, Womick said.