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Switched at Birth: Two Friends Stunned by Mix-Up at Remote Canada Hospital

Members of their tiny indigenous community always joked that the two resembled the others' parents

Two men in Canada believe they were switched at birth at a federally run hospital in a remote region of the country 41 years ago — the second such mix-up the hospital experienced that year, NBC News reported.

The friends, David Tait Jr. and Leon Swanson, were born three days apart at Norway House Indian Hospital in northern Manitoba in the winter of 1975.

Members of their tiny indigenous community always joked that the two resembled the others' parents, Swanson told reporters last Friday at a news conference in Winnipeg. The two decided to undergo DNA testing after another set of men discovered last November through DNA tests that they had been switched at birth at the same hospital, also in 1975.

Health Canada is reviewing files from the hospital during that time period and has hired "an independent third party to do a dedicated and thorough investigation of all available hospital records from the period to determine what happened and whether there is any other cause for concern beyond the two cases identified," Canada's health minister said in a statement that was emailed to NBC News.

Even without Swanson's results officially in, the men were overwhelmed with emotion when speaking about being sent home with the wrong families as newborns.

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