And when the girl was born during the Festival of Lakshmi and the new mom saw that she had eight limbs, just like the goddess Lakshmi, Poonan and others were convinced that she was the goddess incarnate.
In medical terms, Lakshmi had a parasitic twin, a condition so rare that no reliable numbers exist on its prevalence. The incidence of conjoined twins is one in 50,000, and Lakshmi's kind of twin forms in only 3 percent of all types of conjoined babies. Video Watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Lakshmi today »
Lakshmi had a full set of arms and legs. She also had another full set of arms and legs from a headless, mirror-image twin that didn't develop in her mother's uterus.
Patil had seen plenty of disfigured children. He has removed a foot and leg sprouting from a boy's spine, but he never had encountered a child with eight limbs. "In spite of whatever the beliefs were, as a medical man, I thought she needed help," Patil said. Video Watch an early report on Lakshmi »
After traveling to Lakshmi's remote village for her first exam, he was encouraged by the fact that the upper set of limbs, which he referred to as the "Lakshmi" limbs, had the best motor control.
But he was troubled by an open, infected sore on what looked like Lakshmi's backside, which turned out to be the neck of the twin. Patil said Lakshmi had experienced infections and fevers every week of her young life. He worried that they could kill her.
Sixteen hours into the surgery, the twin, with its extra arms and legs, was severed.
At 27 hours, it was over -- and Lakshmi had lived.