Sisters bijani

Incense and Lale Bijani Pers. لادن و لاله بیژنی (January 17, 1974 - July 8, 2003) a pair of Siamese twins from Iran , fused heads. Lawyers by education. Died after separation surgery.

Born in Firuzabad , a city in southwestern Iran, in the family of Dadolah Bijani and Maryam Safari, a farming family from the nearby village of Lohrasb. In 1974, the sisters disappeared from the hospital after the doctors responsible for them fled to the United States during the Iranian revolution . For several years, the parents of the sisters could not find them. As a result, they were found in the city of Keredzh near Tehran , they were adopted by Dr. Ali-reza Safarian. Although Dadolah won the custody case against Safarian, the sisters chose to stay with the latter.

The sisters encountered difficulties due to fusion. They were forced to study together and, therefore, they had to choose a common career. Incense wanted to be a lawyer, and Laleh wanted to be a journalist, in the end they decided on choosing Incense. For four years they studied law at Tehran University . Most of the other personal decisions they had to make together. Therefore, for other reasons, from childhood they wanted to split up. Laleh wanted to move to Tehran to study journalism, and her sister wanted to graduate as a lawyer and then move to Shiraz .

In addition, the sisters had different hobbies. While Laleh, among other things, loved to play computer games, Incense preferred to engage in programming. Frankincense also described her sister as more self-centered and herself as rather talkative.

In 1996, the twins traveled to Germany to persuade doctors to separate them, but German doctors refused to operate, saying the risk of surgery would be too high for both of them.

In November 2002, after meeting with a Singaporean neurosurgeon, Dr. Keith Gokh, who was able to successfully separate the fused heads of the sisters Ganga and Yamuna Shrestha from Nepal , the Bijani sisters went to Singapore to undergo surgery. Although doctors warned them that the operation would be associated with a high risk, they decided to undergo surgery. Their decision caused discussion in the world press.

After seven months in Southeast Asia and extensive psychiatric and legal examinations, they underwent surgery on July 6, 2003 at Raffles Hospital , which was conducted by a large international team of 28 surgeons (including Ben Carson , a world-renowned neurosurgeon) and more than hundreds of auxiliary staff working in shifts. For the operation, a specially designed chair was required, since the sisters had to be in a sitting position.

The operation was fraught with great difficulties, because their brains not only had a common vein (superior sagittal sinus), but also fused together. The operation ended on July 8, 2003, it was announced that the sisters were in critical condition, both lost a large amount of blood due to complications that arose during the operation.

The stage of the separation operation ended at 13.30 local time, but the process of restoration of blood vessels was accompanied by a large loss of blood. Frankincense died at 14.30 on the operating table, her sister Laleh died at 16.00. The death of the sisters was announced by the chairman of the hospital, Dr. Loo Choon Yong .

The sisters were buried in accordance with Shiite Muslim traditions in separate graves in Lohrasba. They bequeathed their property to blind children and orphans. Soon a documentary film about the operation went on the air. January 17 was called Day of Hope.