rescuing hug

This touching story about the healing power of sibling love made its appearance on the Internet in April 2000. 

As glurgirific as it must sound, this is actually a true story. 

Kyrie and Brielle Jackson were born on 17 October 1995 at the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in Worcester, MA. Each of the twins weighed all of two pounds at birth. Though Kyrie was putting on a bit of weight in the days following her arrival, Brielle was not doing as well. She cried a great deal, leaving her gasping and blue-faced. 

Brielle was having a particularly bad day. NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit) nurse Gayle Kasparian tried everything to calm her. She held her. She had her dad hold her. She wrapped her in a blanket. She suctioned her nose. Nothing worked. 

Then, she remembered hearing about a procedure done in Europe. She put Brielle in the incubator with her sister Kyrie. Almost immediately, Brielle snuggled up to Kyrie. Her blood-oxygen saturation levels, which had been frighteningly low, soared. She began to breathe more easily. The frantic crying stopped and her normal pinkish color quickly returned. Over the next weeks, her health improved steadily in her new, less lonely quarters. 

The children survived their rocky beginning and in time went home with their parents. When last heard from, Brielle and Kyrie were healthy preschoolers. The media attention brought about by their story and the now-famous photo caused their parents, Heidi and Paul Jackson of Westminster, to change their telephone number. 

And famous that photo became. Besides being circulated on the Internet, it has run in Life magazine and Reader's Digest. The photo was taken by Chris Christo of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. 

The Jackson girls made history at Memorial. According to that hospital, "The first co-bedding of twins occurred as an innovation from a staff nurse, Gayle Kasparian, RN."

source :

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/hug.asp