Despite living over 200 miles away from each other, two Tennessee teens went to senior prom together this spring.
Tatum Kelly and Leighton Long first "met" when they were neighbors at the same neonatal intensive care unit at HCA Healthcare’s The Children’s Hospital at TriStar Centennial in Nashville in 2005.
Leighton was born Aug. 22 that year at 28 weeks and Tatum was born three days later on Aug. 25 at 24 weeks.
Their parents connected at the hospital and their families have stayed in touch ever since.
"We're close friends," Leighton, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, told "Good Morning America."
"Throughout elementary school, from what I remember, I think we'd meet up maybe once a month and would meet halfway between here and Knoxville and just hang out for a while," Tatum, who is from Pulaski, Tennessee, said.
Jaime Horton was a bedside nurse at TriStar Centennial at the time and remembers caring for Tatum as a baby in the NICU. Horton has kept in touch with Tatum's family and said the bond between families in a NICU can be a very close one.
"It's a really hard time, it's not something any parent dreams of going through," Horton, now a NICU nurse manager at TriStar Centennial, explained.
"When these families see another family they can connect with and help them get through it, [like] Leighton's family was able to go through it with Tatum's family, going through the same thing at the same time, you can share the joys with each other and then you have somebody who understands the hard times," Horton continued. "To have that understanding of what they're going through together is ... a bond that has to happen naturally. They just really support each other."
It was Tatum who decided to ask Leighton to her senior prom. Although they're both 17, Leighton is a high school junior and Tatum just finished her senior year.
"It was a few months before prom. I asked him because I knew it was getting close and I thought it would be fun to bring him because we haven't gotten to see each other much," Tatum told "GMA." "So I thought it'd be fun. And so I asked him, because also it was gonna be a new experience."
Leighton was quickly on board with the "cool" idea and his parents even surprised Tatum with a limo rental for the special occasion.
"She had no idea that the limo was coming," Leighton recalled. "It was outside of this walk in front of the courthouse and it was parked outside and so we told her right as they had pulled up."
Tatum and Leighton said they both had a ball during and after prom, which was held in late April.
"We had a lot of fun. He got to meet some of my friends and it was really cool because they were all really accepting of him and were excited to meet him," Tatum said. "After prom, we went and did laser tag and bowling with some of my friends and had a lot of fun."
"It was really fun. It was cool meeting new people and dancing and laser tag and bowling. It was just a new experience," Leighton added.
Editor's note: This was originally published on June 6, 2023.
