Martha Lillard, last US polio patient to use iron lung, dies at 78

Martha Lillard, the last polio patient in the United States to rely on an iron lung, has died at the age of 78. She passed away late last month in Oklahoma, and while her official cause of death was listed as post-polio syndrome and chronic pulmonary failure, her younger sister, Cindy McVey, attributes it to the effects of long Covid-19. For 73 years, Lillard spent hours each day inside the large metal cylinder, which used a negative pressure system – a motor-driven bellows sucking air out to create a vacuum around her body, forcing her lungs to expand, then letting air back in to deflate them. Tens of thousands of people depended on such machines after polio peaked in the 1950s, but Lillard never let it slow her down. She learned to drive a retrofitted vehicle – the wheel positioned in her lap, turn signals on the floor to accommodate her limited arm mobility – took up painting, and cared for her beloved beagles. Her family modified the iron lung so she could live alone and get in and out of it herself. “She could do things most iron lung patients couldn’t do,” McVey said. Diagnosed at age five in the mid-1950s, Lillard knew immediately she had polio. “Martha woke up and she couldn’t lift her head off the pillow,” McVey recalled, “she said she knew right away that she had polio, because she heard so much about it.” After a hospital stint, she underwent physical, occupational and water therapy, regaining partial use of her left arm and use of her legs. Unlike some children, she did not fear the machine. “It recharged her and made her feel better,” McVey said. “She was resilient, she would find a way, or make do.” Lillard’s determination, and her family’s commitment to helping her live like her peers, defined a life that refused to be confined by the iron lung.