'Miracle' triplets go back after 17 years to thank life-saver doctors

“MIRACLE” triplets who spent three months fighting for life in intensive care after their premature birth have been reunited with the London doctors who saved them… 17 years later.

- Daniel Keane

Isabel, Emily and Ben Collier were born after just 29 weeks’ gestation at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on January 8, 2006. All three of them weighed less than three pounds each — well under half the average of a newborn baby. Now they are all healthy 17-year-olds preparing to take their AS-level exams.

As newborns, they were taken to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, where they were treated by consultant Dr Gary Hartnoll, surgeon Dr Charlotte Deans and nurse Bryony Skipworth. They were given steroids to open up their lungs and help them to breathe.

Their father Andy Collier told the Standard the experience of watching his children fight for life was “terrifying”.