Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78
Martha Lillard, the last known U.S. polio patient to rely on an iron lung, has died at age 78. She lived for decades in the machine after contracting polio as a child, eventually succumbing to complications related to post-polio syndrome and COVID-19.
Why it matters
Her passing marks the end of an era for polio survivors in the United States and highlights the long-term medical challenges faced by those who lived through the pre-vaccine era.
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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 attributes her sister’s death to the effects of long-haul COVID-19. A death certificate lists causes as chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome, McVey said.
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