GLENDALE, AZ — Two Valley nurses found out they were related after working together for two years.
Sandi Sandrik began looking for her biological father recently in hopes to learn more about her family history.
"I wasn’t really looking for him," said Sandrik. "My whole life I thought he didn’t know I was in existence."
After taking a 23andMe DNA test, a first cousin reached out to Sandrik and passed along her dad's name. Sandrik turned to Facebook, finding her biological dad, and noticing that he had a mutual friend who happened to be her coworker.
"I was running by and I said, ‘When I have a minute I have a question I need to ask you,'" Sandrick said to Allen Tucker, who works with Sandrik as an emergency room nurse at Banner Thunderbird Hospital. "I said how do you know this person and Allen blurted out that it was his dad."
Just before Christmas, Sandrik and Tucker learned they are half-siblings after working at the same hospital for two years. When they put the pieces together and realized their family ties, Tucker and Sandrik smiled, hugged, and said it just made sense.
"I’ve always felt super comfortable with her, above and beyond how you would be with a colleague," said Tucker. "How do you have somebody tell you that they have the same father and you give them a hug and say “Oh yeah that’s great?'"
Their relationship is rock solid, and both of their families have fully embraced the other.
"We talk probably daily. We’re texting, we’re talking, we’re seeing each other at work," said Sandrik. "It just seems so natural."
Sandrik has yet to meet her biological father but instead, is focusing on growing her relationship with her half-brother, Tucker.
"We’re just taking it as it comes," said Sandrik. "We’re just enjoying it every day. I don’t know what tomorrow brings but I know that Allen’s in my life and that makes things better."
