Washington, July 11, 2026
Martha Lillard, who according to reports from several US media outlets was considered one of the last known users of an iron lung, died at the end of June at the age of 78 in Oklahoma.
Life with the Iron Lung
Martha Lillard contracted polio in 1953 at the age of five – two years before the first vaccine against the disease was introduced in the United States. As several US media outlets reported, citing her sister, her health had increasingly deteriorated recently, also as a result of long-term effects of two COVID-19 infections. She was 78 years old.
The iron lung, a barrel-shaped ventilator that took over the breathing of patients through pressure changes, became a symbol of the fight against polio in the 1950s. Before the introduction of effective polio vaccines, thousands of people depended on the device to survive. According to reports, Lillard lived in such a chamber for more than seven decades.
It was only in March 2024 that Paul Alexander, another well-known long-term user of the iron lung, died at the age of 78. He too had lived with the device for more than 70 years. Alexander's death attracted international attention because his story highlighted the long-term consequences of the polio epidemic in the United States.