Last US polio patient to use iron lung dies at 78

Martha Lillard, the last known U.S. polio patient still relying on an iron lung, died June 26 in Oklahoma at 78. For the past two years of her life, Lillard was in the machine nearly 24 hours a day.

Lillard contracted polio in 1953, when she was 5 years old. Her younger sister, Cindy McVey, said doctors told Lillard she was not supposed to live past 20, but she kept going with “enthusiasm” and “drive” and tried to make the best of her life. McVey said she believes long-haul COVID-19 contributed to her sister’s death, and the death certificate listed chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome as causes.

An iron lung is a negative-pressure breathing machine used mainly for people whose breathing muscles were paralyzed by polio. The first one was used at Boston Children’s Hospital in 1928, and during the worst U.S. polio year in 1952, the disease reached 57,628 cases. By then, the machine had become a fixture in hospitals and homes for patients who could not breathe on their own.

Paul Alexander died in 2024. Alexander was long described as the last man to live in an iron lung, but Lillard was the last known U.S. polio patient still using one. McVey shared a photo showing Lillard resting in her iron lung in Shawnee, Oklahoma, earlier this year.

There is no cure for polio, but vaccination protects children against severe disease including paralysis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends four doses of polio vaccine for children. The inactivated vaccine is highly effective.