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Aguirre Twins Walking - A Medical Miracle

Carl and Clarence Take Their First Steps

Medical Miracle After Specialists at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore Complete the First Successful Separation of Conjoined Twins in Medical History

Doctors Marvel at Twins' Progress

New York City, NY (September 26, 2005) - Carl and Clarence Aguirre are now on their feet and walking independently, 13 months after the formerly conjoined Filipino twins were surgically separated at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM). Given their steady recovery to date, doctors are optimistic that the boys will continue their developmental gains and will enjoy a happy and healthy life.

For photos of the boys, please click here. To see the boys in the Dateline NBC story that aired Sunday, September 25th, please click here.

For members of the media, please click here.

Clarence, the more outgoing of the boys, now walks—or rather, runs—all on his own, apparently so excited by his new-found freedom that he is unable, or perhaps unwilling, to slow down. Carl, the quieter, reticent brother, still likes to use a walker or the steadying grasp of an adult's hand as he navigates a whole new world. Physicians expect that shortly Carl, too, will decide to "let go" and become fully, independently mobile.

Doctors involved in the dramatic 17-hour surgery that finally separated the two brothers, the culmination of a series of four staged procedures over 10 months, are gratified and amazed at the twins' progress.

"We started this journey with two boys conjoined at the tops of their heads who had spent their entire lives flat on their backs, malnourished, underdeveloped and living in social isolation in the rural Philippines, and look at them now," said James Tait Goodrich, MD, PhD, director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at CHAM. "Clarence is a big show-off, running around like a Samurai, and Carl is not far behind."

"I always had dreamed I would see my boys running around and playing," said Arlene Aguirre, the boys' mother. "But I was in shock when I saw Clarence walking for the first time," she said. "And then I cried."

The twins' lead pediatrician, Robert Marion, MD, director, Center for Congenital Disorders, CHAM, said that the boys' progress to date had banished earlier worries of possible neurological deficits that might emerge post-surgery.

"If we start the clock on their development at the time of the separation—their ‘rebirth' at Montefiore—then the two are really acting appropriately for 13-month-olds," Dr. Marion said. "The boys are not only walking, but speaking simple single words and making themselves very well understood."

"The fact is," he said, "Carl and Clarence are doing so well gaining back lost time that all of us are extremely optimistic that, as they get older, they are going to become more and more like kids their own age," said Dr. Marion.