‘And Now We Are 3’: 4 ER Patients Who Woke Up Looking Exactly Like The Identical Twin Surgeons Who Operated On Them
There’s medical malpractice, and then there’s waking up from anesthesia to discover that you now resemble the twin brothers who operated on you. Unfortunately for these five ER patients of identical twins Dr. Fabian and Fernando Ferreira, they experienced the latter.
- Neil Engleton, 43, Sacramento, CA
When Neil Engleton went to the ER for a ruptured appendix, Drs. Fabian and Fernando Ferreira briefly introduced themselves as the surgeons who’d be performing his appendectomy. As Neil was being placed under anesthesia, the brother surgeons spoke in unison, explaining that they would “take the very best care of [their] new brother.” Neil fell unconscious before he was able to ask what they meant by that, and woke up several hours later with his appendix safely removed…and his entire body covered in medical dressings.
Neil asked why it felt like every inch of his body had been operated on, the brother surgeons only smiled and said, “Now you are we, and that makes us three.” Neil responded, “…okay?” The Ferreiras instructed Neil not to remove the bandages for two weeks and exited the room, and then the hospital’s premises, hand in hand. They were never seen in Sacramento again.
Two weeks later, Neil removed all his bandaging and looked in the mirror, where he saw not his face, but the face of the Ferreira brothers staring back at him. Neil immediately contacted the police, but they were unable to track down the brother surgeons. Neil still looks like the Ferreiras to this day.
- Josefina Lopéz, 78, McAllen, TX
After Josefina Lopéz fell and shattered her hip at her grandson’s birthday party, she was rushed to a local hospital, where the Ferreira twins were now working as surgeons under new aliases: Drs. Gabian and Gernando Gerreira. Like Neil Engleton, Josefina awoke from surgery wrapped head-to-toe in medical dressing, and demanded answers as to what happened during the hip replacement procedure that required a full-body operation. The twin surgeons knelt down at her hospital bed in unison, and replied, also in unison, “Before we were two, and that wouldn’t do, so we became three, and now thee are we.” Josefina sat quietly, processing what exactly the surgeons were telling her.
“Just to be clear…before you were two and that ‘wouldn’t do’…but then you found me, so…me became three? Is that what you said?” she asked. The brother surgeons nodded in unison. Despite having no clue what they meant, Josefina politely thanked the surgeons for taking care of her anyway. The brothers called an Uber and left McAllen, TX, never to return.
Josefina was soon released from the hospital and spent several weeks in recovery at her daughter’s house, until the day she took off her bandages—Josefina’s daughter screamed and called 911 upon seeing that the person who’d been living in her house was not Josefina, but one of the 40-something-year-old surgeon brothers who’d operated on her mother.
Josefina was unable to convince police that she was not one of the Ferreira twins and was turned over to law enforcement in California, where the Ferreiras were wanted for the nonconsensual full-body plastic surgery they performed on Neil Engleton. Josefina was later tried and convicted. She remains in prison, serving a 30-year sentence for the Ferreira brothers’ medical crimes.
- Teddy Mercer, 11, Burlington, VT
Teddy Mercer, the only child of two University of Vermont professors, fell off a ski lift at Sugarbush Resort and suffered a punctured lung that nearly took his life. Fortunately, ER surgeons were able to save him. Unfortunately, those surgeons were Drs. Dabian and Dernando Derreira, the new aliases of the serial surgical malpractice physicians formerly known as the Ferreira twins, who took Teddy’s accident as an opportunity to strike again. Teddy entered emergency surgery as a boy, and left resembling a third Ferreira brother.
“You must have another, if you’re to be brothers, so–” the doctors began to explain, in unison, before Teddy cut them off.
“Wait, I have brothers now?! I’ve always wanted a brother! I hate being an only child! Yes, yes, yes!” shouted Teddy in glee. The Ferreira brother doctors were really put off by the boy’s response. Teddy was way too into the whole situation for their liking. It just wasn’t the vibe they go for when they do this to people. So, they sedated Teddy again, and surgically turned him back into an 11-year-old before disappearing from Burlington forever.
Today, Teddy has recovered in full from his chairlift accident. He made the honor roll for the very first time this semester.
- Jeremy Renner, 54, Reno, NV
In 2023, Hollywood actor Jeremy Renner nearly died in a snow plow accident near his Lake Tahoe home. Renner survived the ordeal thanks to the work of Reno-area trauma surgeons…Drs. Abian and Ernando Erreira, who performed full-body reconstruction surgery on not the actor, but each other, so that when Renner awoke from his operation, he was greeted by two versions of himself.
“We loved being two, but then we saw thee, so we bid two adieu, and we became ye,” the brother doctors explained in unison.
Interestingly, Mr. Renner did not seem to notice that the doctor brothers had assumed his physical appearance. He was busy texting ‘MARVEL CO-STARS,’ a group chat containing a dozen other actors, when the twin surgeons were speaking to him in unison. “Holy CRAP I almost got killed by my own snow plow but I’m okay now guys,” Renner texted (a message which received only one response—a thumbs up from Dr. Strange actor Benedict Cumberbatch). Without looking up from his phone, Renner muttered a thank you to the doctors, got in his snowplow, and drove home from the hospital.
The Ferreira brothers are now starring as Jeremy Renner as Dr. Nat Sharp in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, currently streaming on Netflix.