The 64-year-old is suing the hospital he was born in over the alleged screw up after DNA tests confirmed that he wasn’t his parents’ biological son
A man from Long Island found out he was switched at birth with a baby born just minutes apart from him with the same last name, but he only learned the truth through Ancestry.com.
Kevin McMahon, 64, is now suing Jamaica Hospital in Queens over the mix up on May 26, 1960. He had a suspicion that he wasn’t his parents’ biological son and his fears were confirmed via a DNA test.
The telecoms professional said: “It was like the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle. [It] explained everything about why my childhood was the way that it was”, he told The New York Post.
The Queens resident said he was tormented by some family members growing up as they thought he wasn’t a blood relative.
He learned the devastating truth in 2020 when his sister, Carol Vignola, 66, did a DNA test through Ancestry and found she had a biological brother, according to the lawsuit filed in Queens Civil Court in November 2021.
Ross McMahon was born 45 minutes apart from Kevin at the same hospital, court papers report.
The infants were given consecutive birth certificate numbers both tagged “Baby McMahon”, but then they were allegedly handed to the wrong parents.
Virginia thought Kevin wasn’t related to her, partly because he has darker eyes and complexion.
Kevin was overwhelmed by grief as he had suffered a tormented childhood.
He said: “[It was] like a shock reaction. I literally couldn’t come to terms with the information. For a long time, I’m like, I’m not really Kevin McMahon. I’m really Ross McMahon,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m nobody … I don’t exist.’
“It’s just hard to deal with, just hard.”
Kevin took his own Ancestry.com test in January 2021 which confirmed he was not in fact genetically related to the family that raised him.
The suit also says Kevin has his own biological brother called Keith. The two sets of biological siblings, Vignola and Ross, as well as Kevin and Keith, later took additional blood tests to prove that they were definitely a match.
Kevin said his paternal grandmother and the man he called Dad felt he wasn’t related to him and treated him like an outsider.
He said his grandmother seemed to hate him and she assumed his mother had cheated as he looked so different.
Kevin had olive skin and brown eyes while most of the rest of the family had blue eyes, fair skin and freckles.
He said his grandmother was physically abusive and he tried to stay away from her, and suffered similar abuse from his father while he doted on his other children.
But both sets of parents involved in the alleged switch are dead.
Kevin admitted he harbours some resentment towards Ross as he was accepted by his parents and was doted on and always supported.
McMahon wants the hospital to admit it made a mistake and the lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages.
McMahon’s lawyer, Jeremy Schiowitz of Isaacson, Schiowitz & Korson, said the hospital failed to double-check its procedures.
He added: “This wasn’t a fluke. This was a preventable tragedy.”
Jamaica Hospital did not provide comment to The Post.
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