Martha Lillard spent a lifetime defying a medical death sentence that told her she would not survive past age 20. The 78-year-old Oklahoma woman died this week, marking the end of an era as the last American to rely on an iron lung to live.
Lillard was diagnosed with polio at age 5, a disease that paralysed her from the neck down. To breathe, she required a negative-pressure ventilator, a massive steel cylinder that functioned as an external set of lungs. According to Fox News, the machine was essential for her survival while she slept.
Her survival was a victory of will over anatomy. Her sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday that Lillard possessed the drive to make the best of her life. As a child, she attended school for two hours a day and used an intercom system to speak with classmates from home.
Lillard even travelled via a custom trailer designed to house her machine. Her father ensured their hotels had doors wide enough for the ventilator. Through therapy, she eventually regained use of her legs and left arm, even driving for a period of time.
The iron lung was a common sight in the early 20th century before the 1955 vaccine. While the US considered polio eliminated by 1979, Lillard remained a living link to that terror. She lived independently for years and married a man from Egypt earlier this year after twenty years of correspondence.
The final blow came during the pandemic. Lillard contracted COVID-19 twice, which forced her to remain in the iron lung nearly 24 hours a day. She had only 25 per cent lung capacity before the virus struck, according to McVey.
Her death certificate lists chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome as the causes. McVey added that the death was related to the effects of long-haul COVID. The loss leaves her husband, whom McVey described as extremely brokenhearted, to mourn a soul mate.
The passing of the last iron lung user closes a chapter on mid-century medicine. Public health officials will continue to monitor long-term polio survivors as they age, with new clinical reviews expected by late 2025.
