Vaccines have done much to eradicate deadly and crippling diseases from our planet. Whether you are for or against the concept of helping your body recognize and ward off attacking biological threats, it is impossible to deny the living examples of what life was like before immunizations.
Polio has been considered an eradicated threat thanks to the thriving number of vaccinated people who will never know the disease, but for a time it was the terror of the medical world. Hospitals were filled with people suffering paralysis from polio. Some were rendered unable to breathe on their own and were placed in an assisted breathing device called an iron lung, which is a type of cylindrical full-body pressure system. A person using an iron lung is confined to it, often for life, with only their heads visible as they lie inside the negative pressure device which stimulates inhaling and exhaling in cases of full body paralysis.
Until recently, three people were still using iron lungs. A man named Paul Alexander was able to live a fulfilling life even as he was mostly confined to one room inside his device. He received a bachelor’s degree and became a lawyer with a “work from home” practice. He was six years old when overtaken by polio, and at nearly 72 years of confinement was considered the longest surviving person using an iron lung. He passed away in March 2024 at the age of 78.
A woman named Mona Randolph needed the device after contracting polio at age 20 but was able to emerge from it for a while, only to need it again when post-recovery symptoms overtook her years later. She also used CPAP, which is a common method of treating sleep apnea. She died in 2019 at age 82.
The last known surviving iron lung user is Martha Lillard, who may have contracted polio when exposed at her own birthday party at an amusement park, where she was around throngs of people who may have had the disease and been asymptomatic. She tried alternative products but chose to remain in the device for life, feeling it keeps her healthy. She has beagles and spends time painting and watching classic movies. Now in her 70s, she said in an interview that replacing parts on the device is her biggest concern (insurance does not cover it).
Once during a blizzard, her power went out and the back-up generator failed. She was unable to reach emergency services for some time until the cell towers produced a signal. Her determination not to give into panic saved her. She remains an example of how far we have come from days when getting sick was more often than not a death sentence. When she leaves this world, a chapter from medical history will be closed, but let’s hope we have learned something from it.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the remaining places in which polio is still considered a threat, after Nigeria experienced its last case in 2016. Today most of us have likely not been shown what polio did to victims in the last century and beyond, but rendering the virus extinct will permanently mark the death of the iron lung as well.
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