Conjoined twins from Masbate die in sleep

After 26 days of fighting for life, conjoined twins Angel May and Angela Garganta died in their sleep yesterday afternoon, five hours after arriving at their house in Sawang Uson, Masbate City.

Sen. Richard Gordon, Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC) chairman, said the twins died at 2:45 p.m.

"We commiserate with Reynaldo and Vilma, the twins’ parents, for the death of Angela and Angel May. I feel a deep sense of loss for their passing," he said.

Gordon said the doctors at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) and the PNRC "have done everything humanly possible to save them, but science has not yet found... a solution to their case."

The Garganta family, accompanied by some PGH doctors and a Red Cross nurse, were flown to Masbate airport on a Beechcraft King Air courtesy of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Network.

Gwen Pang, Gordon’s liaison officer for PNRC, said the twins arrived at their house at around 9:45 a.m. yesterday.

"We were checking on them from time to time and, according to their father, the twins fell asleep and did not wake up," she told The STAR.

Pang said there were suggestions that the twins be brought to a hospital in Masbate, but their parents decided against it.

She added that Reynaldo felt his daughters were already tired because of the many tubes attached to them during their stay at the PGH.

"The situation had been explained to them and they understood. All they wanted was to spend intimate and quality time with the twins in their home," Pang said.

The twins’ parents decided to bring them back to Masbate after doctors at the PGH found that surgery to separate them could be fatal to either or both infants. The twins had been in the PGH for the past three weeks.

Doctors said one or both twins would die after surgery and the rate of survival beyond the age of two was only 20 percent.

"We leave everything to God. He’s the only one who knows what will happen to my daughters," Reynaldo said in a press conference last Monday.

Gordon said Reynaldo’s only wish then was for the twins to be able to reach their home alive.

"We granted the father’s wish to bring the twins back to Masbate and join their family, who have all been praying for them and awaiting their return," he said.

Gordon added that he saw how the twins gasped for breath in spite of the ventilator, and "their father felt they should not be put through that kind of suffering anymore."

The twins, attached to each other from chest to abdomen, shared a liver and a gallbladder. Though they had two hearts, these were joined together and had only three ventricles between them. A normal heart should have four ventricles.

The twins also suffered from pneumonia and an infection in the blood.

Gordon said the PNRC will help with the costs of burial for the twins and will extend livelihood assistance to Reynaldo, who earns a living as a fisherman.

"This case underscored the need for better-equipped hospital facilities in the countryside, which will translate to better pre-natal care and the capability to detect possible abnormalities earlier — the better to prepare for proper response and intervention where necessary," Gordon said.