Shiloh Pepin, 'the little mermaid,' dies at 10

Along with countless others, I was captured by Shiloh's indomitable spirit when I watched a documentary about her this past June on The Learning Channel (above, an excerpt).

From a June 23 post: "Shiloh, from Portland, Maine, now nine years old, met the world's oldest known person with sirenomyelia, 21-year-old Tiffany Yorks of Tampa, Florida, early last year."

A 2005 post on the subject focused on two children (Tiffany Yorks being one) with Mermaid syndrome  who underwent corrective surgery in early infancy in an attempt to unfuse their congenitally fused-together legs.

Shiloh, a fifth-grader at Kennebunkport Consolidated School, contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized at Maine Medical Center on October 10, where she died last Friday.