Family says they were given wrong baby at Logan hospital

A family from Mingo County says they were shocked after they discovered the newborn baby they'd been taking pictures with in a hospital was the wrong baby.

Dawson Perry's parents say they won't be letting him out of their sight for a long, long time.

"I'm just trying to warn people that it can happen," the father, Arnold "Junior" Perry said.

The baby was born last Tuesday at Logan Regional Medical Center.

Thursday morning, Perry went to get the newborn out of the nursery.

"The boy was sitting in the same spot," Perry said. "He had a card that said Perry. It didn't have height or weight or anything on the card. He had sandy blonde hair and was rolled up. He looked like my baby."

He says his baby had been in a cart labeled 204, and this baby was in cart 205.

"I said 'This is my baby, why is he in the wrong cart?' The nurse said someone must have messed up," Perry told WSAZ. "She went and marked it (205) out and put 204. I rolled the baby on down there."

The family says for about 2 hours, relatives held the newborn and took pictures, not realizing it was the wrong baby.

"We really thought it was our grandson because we were saying look at his nose, comparing it to my daughter's nose," the grandmother, Barbara Colegrove, said.

They say a nurse came into their room and checked the baby's armband number, and then the nurse came back later with their real son.

Perry says the family became distraught when they realized what had happened.

"They were crying, upset, couldn't believe it, scared," Perry said.

The grandma had driven 9 hours from South Carolina.

"I only had like 45 minutes to be with my real grandson," she said. "It was unbelievable."

Perry says they've quadruple checked and made sure they brought the correct child back to their home in Lenore.

A spokesman for the hospital said he couldn't disclose or confirm any information related to the incident due to patient privacy.