Martha Lillard, Last US Polio Patient on Iron Lung, Dies at 78

Martha Lillard spent 73 years paralyzed from the neck down due to polio contracted at age 5, requiring constant dependence on an iron lung for breathing until her death.

On June 26, in Oklahoma, Martha Lillard died at 78 — the last American whose breath depended on an iron lung, a machine she had shared her life with for 73 years after polio paralyzed her at age 5. Her death closes a chapter in the long human struggle against disease, one that began before vaccines rewrote the story of childhood in America. She outlived every prognosis, built a life of remarkable fullness within severe constraint, and in the end was undone not by the disease that defined her, but by a newer one. With her passing, the iron lung — once a symbol of both suffering and survival — b

Martha Lillard, Last US Polio Patient on Iron Lung, Dies at 78

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