Almost two decades after Victoria Lynn Laffin was abandoned at a Staten Island hospital, she has reunited with the hospital employee who found her.
Laffin was just four or five days old when she was found at Richmond University Medical Center by a cardiac technician, Claudia Beadle, in February 2004, according to WABC. Beadle found her in a hospital washroom, draped in a blanket. She recalled seeing a pretty small face hidden behind the floor’s toilet tank.
Beadle and the pediatrics team looked after Laffin while she was at the hospital. Even on her breaks and days off, Beadle would pass by to feed her. Eventually, a couple named Angela and Dennis Laffin adopted Laffin, who is now 19 years old.
Laffin shared with WABC, “Walking in here was emotional and a little overwhelming, but it was nice to see the place where I was left and to know Claudia was so great and took such good care of me.”
Beadle, who has worked as a cardiac technician at the hospital for close to 40 years, said she is most proud of this moment, PIX 11 reported. Angela and Dennis Laffin also adopted a boy, Frank, in 2002, in addition to their one biological son. He had also been left on the steps of a daycare center in Staten Island.
Angela Laffin explained, “They didn’t know they were abandoned until a couple of months ago because we don’t use the word abandoned in our vocabulary.”
Laffin and Frank, who had been adopted, recently decided to research their ancestry. They both had their DNA tested and in a strange turn of events, Laffin got a message she didn’t expect.
“I got the match that my brother had popped up as my full sibling, my biological brother, it was crazy and not expected at all,” she said. She and Frank were biological siblings, according to the message.
“We were both found a year and a half apart and wind up in the same family, the odds are crazy,” Frank added.
The reunion brought together individuals who had contributed to the family’s development, as the woman who found Frank met the woman who found Laffin.
The reunited siblings, Laffin and Frank, are now collaborating to start a scholarship fund.
