It’s a hospital snafu that’s rightfully left the Tennessean parents of an otherwise healthy newborn fuming.

As first reported by WTVF, Jennifer Melton’s son Nate was subjected to a medical procedure aimed at correcting a birth defect in his tongue soon after being born at the University Medical Center in Lebanon, Tenn — problem was, Nate’s tongue was perfectly fine. It turns out that hospital staff mistook Nate for another baby. Not only that, they even failed to obtain consent from either parent prior to the surgery, with Melton simply assuming nurses had taken away Nate for a physical, only for them to return hours later with a now operated-on son.

"Essentially they took our child who was 100 percent healthy, no issues at all, out of the nursery and cut his mouth," Melton told WTVF. "At that point I began to cry hysterically."

The procedure in question was a frenectomy, or the removal of a little skin flap (frenulum) underneath the tongue. A similar skin flap exists at the base of our inner lip and in genitalia. While the frenulum normally helps secure a free-hanging organ to the body, it can too harshly restrict its motion if it’s too short. In those cases, surgeons, as they did with Nate, will simply cut away at least a portion of the frenulum. Though unmentioned, it’s likely the medical condition UMC doctors were attempting to fix was ankyloglossia, or tongue-tie.

For their part, the hospital was quick to admit to their mistake, with the surgeon who operated on Nate explaining what happened in a progress report. "... I had asked for the wrong infant. I had likely performed the procedure on an infant different than the one I intended to ... and I admitted my mistake and apologized," he wrote, according to WTVF.

Melton and her attorney Clint Kelly weren’t particularly enthused by that explanation, however. "There is no excuse on operating on the wrong baby, none," said Kelly. "We don't know if the child will have speech problems or eating problems. The concern here is this was a healthy baby that was supposed to leave the hospital, but instead was harmed by the hospital."

Though the frenectomy is a relatively minor procedure that can be performed at a dentist’s office, Kelly is right to note that there’s really no telling how it might impact someone with an already perfectly functional tongue.

Nate's case is hardly the first hospital mishap to receive attention. In 2014, an Alabama couple sued doctors after the man’s planned circumcision became an amputation, and in 2013, a New York City hospital fired the surgeon who removed the wrong kidney from a 76-year-old man on dialysis.