The Twins Are Teachers Now

Joined at birth, Abby and Brittany have gone on to lead full, happy lives.

- Kirstin Buick

THEY had a one in 30 million chance of surviving 24 hours after their birth. Now they’re 27 and still making history as the world’s only known surviving conjoined twins of their kind.

Officially the young women are known as dicephalus parapagus twins, where two heads are side by side on one torso, and they’ve confounded the medical world since their birth.

But to their close-knit community in Minnesota in the US they’re just Abby and Brittany, the sweet-natured Hensel girls who grew up on a farm with their parents and their younger siblings.

The sisters’ incredible lives have fascinated people all over the world since they appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show when they were six, and later charmed their way into viewers’ hearts in their own TV shows, Joined For Life and Abby & Brittany, when they were teens.

Abby explained their decision to give the world a window into their daily lives in Joined For Life. “We wanted to make this documentary so people wouldn’t always have to stare and take pictures,” she said simply. “We don’t like it when they take pictures.

“It’s normal what we do – our life isn’t any different from yours.”

But despite their popularity and willingness to open their lives, the blonde pair have shied away from the limelight as they’ve grown up. Today they’re living quiet lives not far from their hometown in Minnesota. They teach fifth grade at Sunnyside Elementary School.

While they each have their own teaching degree from Bethel University, the young women realised their condition would limit them when it came to the practicalities of their career.