Two brothers poisoned after inhaling pesticides that killed their two younger sisters in their Jerusalem home are now out of intensive care.
Michael Gross, 7, and Yitzhak, 5, were well enough to join a music therapy session, the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Acharonot reported Tuesday, and featured a photo of the two boys playing a large harp. They will be allowed to return home in the coming weeks and attend physical therapy on an out-patient basis.
The boys both were disconnected last week from the machines that were pumping oxygen into their hearts and lungs and on to the rest of their bodies as doctors waited for the toxins, for which there is no known cure, to leave their bodies. They squeezed their father’s hand and responded to his voice.
Their sisters Avigail and Yael, ages 1 and 4, died from the poison.
The entire family because ill on January 21 and sought medical attention for diarrhea and vomiting, but medical staff failed to diagnose their condition as poisoning. One of the girls stopped breathing the following day, and both girls died in a Jerusalem hospital.
The boys’ parents, Michal and Shimon Gross, who sat shiva for their daughters while running to the hospital to be with their sons, called on all Israelis and Jews around the world to pray for the recovery of their sons.
The exterminator, who used poison lethal to humans, and left it in a closed container in the apartment planning to complete the job the following day, remains under house arrest.