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Hours each day in an iron lung kept her breathing, her will to live kept her alive
Yahoo News Canada • • health
Key Points:
- Martha Lillard, the last polio patient in the US using an iron lung, lived a resilient life despite her condition, driving a specially adapted vehicle, painting, and caring for her dogs until her death at 78.
- Diagnosed in the mid-1950s, Lillard used the iron lung for 73 years, a device that helped her breathe by creating a vacuum to expand and contract her lungs.
- Lillard’s family innovated ways to increase her independence, including mechanisms to open the iron lung and a customized car setup to accommodate her limited mobility.
- Polio, once a devastating disease primarily affecting children, was declared eliminated in the US by 1979 due to widespread vaccination, but growing vaccine hesitancy now raises concerns about potential resurgence.
- Lillard’s sister warns of the dangers of undervaluing polio’s severity and the risks of declining vaccination, emphasizing that the disease can cause severe disability and death, contrasting with misconceptions about vaccine safety.
