Martha Lillard, Last US Polio Patient Using Iron Lung, Dies at 78 in Oklahoma
Her sister said the polio survivor had less than 25% lung capacity and spent her final two years in an iron lung nearly 24 hours a day.
- Martha Lillard, the last known U.S. user of an iron lung, died last month in Oklahoma at 78, her sister Cindy McVey said.
- Diagnosed with polio at 5, Lillard relied on the iron lung to breathe; the device encased her body and used air pressure to force respiration.
- Despite physical constraints, Lillard attended Shawnee High School via phone system and met her future husband, Baha Salh, in an internet chat room after communicating more than 20 years online.
- Sister McVey attributes Lillard's death to long-haul Covid-19, noting she had less than 25% lung capacity before contracting the virus.
- Once a major U.S. threat, polio caused thousands of paralysis cases annually before vaccines became available in 1955; vaccination campaigns cut annual cases to fewer than 10 by the 1970s.
42 Articles
42 Articles
Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in O
Martha Lillard had just turned 5 when she was diagnosed with polio and depended on an iron lung to live. She died June 26 in Oklahoma, the last U.S. polio patient who used the machine, her sister said. She was 78. “They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,” Lillard’s younger sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.” McVey a…
Associated Press News
Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in Oklahoma
Martha Lillard, the last U.S. polio patient using an iron lung, has died at 78 in Oklahoma. Her sister, Cindy McVey, attributes her death to long-haul COVID-19.
Martha Ann Lillard, considered the last person in the United States to depend on a "steel lung" to breathe, died at the age of 78. She died of Shawnee, in the state of Oklahoma, she lived for more than seven decades linked to the equipment after contracting poliomyelitis at the age of five, in 1953, only two years before the introduction of the vaccine against the disease in the country. Fiocruz: hospitalizations for respiratory infections begin…
Iron long is small impediment to Lattimore woman
Martha Lillard, 78, the last American to use an iron lung, died June 26. Here's a 2003 profile of Martha Mason, a Wake Forest graduate and North Carolina native, who at the time of her death in 2009 had lived…
Martha Ann Lillard, who spent 73 years of her life inside a massive metal cylinder called an "iron lung" due to polio she contracted at the age of 5, passed away at the age of 78. Reliant on this mechanical technology from the 1940s because modern respiratory devices were insufficient for her lungs, Lillard died when the historic device that kept her alive malfunctioned and there were no experts in the world capable of repairing it.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 49% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
