Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies

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 US 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, said on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.”McVey attributes her sister’s death to the effects of long-haul Covid-19.Lillard slept in the iron lung cylinder that encased her body as the air pressure in the chamber forced air in and out of her lungs. As a child, she went to grade school for two hours a day and was tutored the rest of the time. She attended Shawnee High School by using a phone system that allowed her to interact with her teachers and classmates through an intercom in her classrooms.Her family went on road trips to Missouri thanks to a custom trailer and her father calling hotels to find out if they had doors wide enough to accommodate the machine Lillard slept in. Lillard was even able to drive for a time.Later, the internet would help Lillard stay informed and learn about all sorts of topics, including polio, which paralysed her from the neck down. With therapy, Lillard regained partial use of her left arm and use of her legs.The internet also allowed Lillard to meet her future husband, from Egypt, with who she communicated online for more than 20 years, McVey said. Lillard married Baha Salh in Feb this year, after he was finally able to obtain a visa to travel to Oklahoma. “They were really soul mates,” McVey said. “He’s extremely brokenhearted.”(AFP)