Martha Lillard, last known US polio survivor using iron lung, dies aged 78

The last known US person living with polio and relying on an iron lung has died aged 78.

Martha Lillard, who contracted polio at age five and spent most of her life dependent on an iron lung machine that helped her breathe, died on 26 June in Oklahoma, according to an online obituary.

Lillard slept inside the metal cylinder device that enclosed her body while changing air pressure within forced air in and out of her lungs. Despite that, she attended grade school for two hours daily before completing the rest of her education through tutoring.

“They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,” Cindy McVey, Lillard’s younger sister, told the Associated Press on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.”

McVey said she believes the effects of a long-term case of Covid-19 contributed to her sister’s death. According to McVey, Lillard’s death certificate lists chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome as her causes of death.

Lillard’s family made it possible for her to travel, taking road trips to Missouri in a custom trailer after her father contacted hotels to ensure their doors were wide enough to accommodate his daughter’s iron lung. Lillard was also able to drive for a period of time.

During the 1950s, as polio swept across the US, iron lungs that enabled children to breathe became a powerful symbol of a greatly feared disease. Photograph: Science History Images/Alamy

McVey said her sister experience all of that after she had been told “she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old”.

“She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life,” McVey recalled to the AP.

In an interview with NBC News in 2013, Lillard described the first moment she was put into the iron lung machine as “a relief”.

“It feels wonderful, actually, if you’re not breathing well,” she said. “It makes all the difference when you’re not breathing.”

Lillard’s death comes two years after the death of Paul Alexander, the Texas man who gained international attention while spending much of his life in an iron lung after contracting polio at age six.

Paralyzed from the neck down by the disease, Alexander became an inspirational figure, earning a law degree, writing a memoir and creating paintings using a brush held in his mouth.

Alexander also died aged 78 after being recognized by Guinness World Records as the organization’s “longest iron lung patient”.

Before vaccines became widely available, polio was among the most feared diseases in the US, with yearly outbreaks leaving thousands of people paralyzed, most of them children.

Iron lungs helped save thousands of lives during those epidemics, although they were intended only for short-term use.

As vaccination campaigns expanded in the late 1950s, the machines largely disappeared and were replaced by other breathing devices inserted directly into the throat.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says widespread vaccination reduced annual US polio cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s. In 1979, polio was declared eliminated in the US, meaning it was no longer routinely spread.