Conjoined twins separated after 13-hour surgery

At eight months old, Joshua and Jacob Spates, conjoined twins from Tennessee, U.S., were finally separated after a successful 13-hour surgery, according to Reuters report Thursday. The twin boys, connected at the spine, recovered in a Memphis hospital Wednesday, two weeks after the separation surgery on August 29. The twins are the first successfully separated conjoined twins documented in Memphis and one of the two dozens in the world, ABC News reported. A 34-member pediatric surgical team, led by Dr. Max Langham, spent 13 hours separating the brothers' spinal column bone, nerves and muscles and completing gastrointestinal repairs. The twins were joined back-to-back at the pelvis and lower spine, but they had their own hearts, heads, and limbs, so they are "two different boys," said Adrienne Spates, mother of the twins. After the surgery, the boys were not only healthy, both of them could also use their legs and crawl out of bed, said Langham. "Joshua's doing great, and hopefully he'll be up and going and have a pretty normal lifespan," Langham said, but Jacob still had to accept treatments and undergo surgeries for he had heart problems. The twins are lucky. "Most conjoined twins don't ever get a chance to get to separation because they die from complications at delivery," said Langham. Conjoined twins are very rare. It occurs in one of 100,000 births, and one of every 200,000 live births, according to reports.