Surgeons Separate Conjoined Twins

Three-month-old conjoined twins who were connected at the buttocks were in critical but stable condition after being separated surgically. The Liberian girls had been flown to the United States for the eight-hour operation Monday at Children’s Hospital in Columbus. After the operation, the girls were in separate cribs for the first time. Mary Cole, weighing 10 pounds, and her sister Decontee, 7 pounds, were doing well, doctors said. The girls, born June 4 in a hut in an African village, had separate vital organs, but the bases of their spines were fused. The bone had to be separated, and surgeons had to fashion new anal openings for both.