Martha Lillard, last American to use iron lung, dies at 78
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Martha Lillard, the last polio survivor in the United States to use an iron lung, has died. She was 78.
Lillard, a lifelong resident of Shawnee, Okla., died on June 26 of COVID-19, according to her recently published obituary .
At age 5 in 1953, Lillard contracted polio, a highly infectious disease caused by poliovirus that’s spread through contaminated food, water or respiratory droplets. It primarily affected children aged five and under.
She contracted the disease at the height of polio’s spread in the United States. At the time, doctors relied on iron lungs to help victims overcome the disease.
An iron lung is a large, cylindrical ventilator that encloses a patient’s entire body below the neckline. It was used in the mid-20th century to treat polio patients.
Iron lungs have become largely obsolete as more modern ventilators have been developed. However, Lillard refused to switch systems, insisting it was the most comfortable option for her, KOSU reported.
Lillard lived more than seven decades relying on the iron lung.
Tens of thousands died of polio
Before a vaccine was developed in 1955, polio killed tens of thousands of people in the U.S. Those who survived were paralyzed, disfigured or relied on an iron lung.
Lillard remembered the day she first had polio, once telling news outlet KFOR that she woke up with a pain in her neck.
“I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow,” Lillard recalled. After four days, the young girl fell unconscious.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I was paralyzed all over,” she said, noting the iron lung saved her life.
She said they “usually didn’t like to put children in because they fought it, but I didn’t.
“I liked it. It felt good to breathe,” she said, noting she spent six months in the hospital learning to breathe on her own.
She initially lived in the iron lung 23 hours a day, with the one hour outside of it used to rehab her paralyzed limbs. Lillard returned to Shawnee with the iron lung in tow and taught herself to walk again.
Lillard’s right arm remained paralyzed, but she could partially use her left one, KFOR reported. By the time she was a teenager, Lillard was able to get in and out of the ventilator by herself.
She was able to live outside the iron lung. In her healthiest times, she only used the iron lung to sleep, about nine hours at night.
Lillard said time spent in the ventilator was a respite for her one working lung.
Most comfortable option
On why she stuck with the iron lung when more modern ventilators were available, she said it was most comfortable option for her.
“So I just wanted people to understand that it’s not, ‘Oh, I want to be in the iron lung.’ That’s not true,” Lillard said during an episode of Radio Diaries in 2021.
“I would rather not need it at all. But sometimes when I get in there, I say, ‘Thank you.’ It feels wonderful to get into it. It’s the thing that’s been there that saved my life and I know that it’s the only thing that’s kept me here.”
Living with an iron lung didn’t come without its challenges.
In the mid-1990s, the machine began to break down, with Lillard looking for a replacement. She told the Road Diaries there was one time when electricity was cut in her home due to an ice storm, and that she had to call 911 for help after the generator she used to power the machine had died.
In the time before her death, Lillard slept in the iron lung for nearly an entire day, KFOR reported.
Lillard is survived by her husband, sister and brother-in-law, and several cousins, nieces and nephews. A GoFundMe has been set up to help with funeral expenses.