Rebeca Martinez sleeps at the CARE clinic in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Tuesday, January 27, 2004. Rebeca, a Dominican infant born with a second partially formed head is scheduled to undergo a risky operation that will take an estimated 13 hours for a team of international doctors and nurses on Friday. (AP Photo)

    SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) - A Dominican infant born with a second head will undergo a risky operation Friday when surgeons try to sever the appendage and prevent hemorrhaging from shared arteries.

    Led by a Los Angles-based neurosurgeon who successfully separated Guatemalan twins, a team will spend about 13 hours removing Rebeca Martinez's second head, which has a partially formed brain, ears, eyes and lips.

    Eighteen surgeons, nurses and doctors will take several rotations to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries and close the skull of the seven-week-old baby using a bone graft from another part of her body.

    "We know this is a delicate operation," the baby's father, Franklyn Martinez, 28, told The Associated Press this week. "But we have a positive attitude."

    Cure International, a Lemoyne, Pa.,-based charity that gives medical care to disabled children in developing countries, is paying for the surgery and follow-up care.

(Courtesy to AP for the story and photos)