Martha Lillard, One of America’s Last Iron Lung Survivors, Dies at 78

SHAWNEE, Okla. — Martha Lillard, who survived polio as a child and spent more than 70 years relying on an iron lung to help her breathe, died June 26 at her home in Shawnee, Oklahoma. She was 78.

Lillard was believed to be the last person in the United States still regularly using one of the massive mechanical respirators that once filled hospital wards during the polio epidemics of the 1940s and 1950s.

She contracted polio on her fifth birthday in 1953, two years before the first widely used polio vaccine became available. The disease left her unable to breathe on her own, and she spent about six months hospitalized inside an iron lung.

Although she later regained some movement and could spend limited periods outside the machine, she continued sleeping in it for the rest of her life. In her final years, worsening post-polio syndrome and complications following COVID-19 forced her to use it nearly around the clock.

Doctors reportedly told her family she might not live past age 20. Instead, Lillard lived nearly six decades beyond that prediction.

Despite her physical limitations, she attended school, learned to drive, lived independently and traveled with an iron lung carried in a specially equipped trailer. She wrote poetry and songs, painted, volunteered with animal-rescue organizations and became especially devoted to helping beagles find homes.

Maintaining the aging machine became increasingly difficult as iron lungs disappeared from medical use. Replacement parts were scarce, few technicians knew how to repair them and power outages posed a constant danger.

Lillard preferred the iron lung to newer portable ventilators, saying its negative-pressure system allowed her to breathe more naturally and comfortably.

One of the most remarkable chapters of her life began online. After meeting Baha Salh of Egypt in an internet chat room following the September 11 attacks, the two remained in contact for more than 20 years. They married in February 2026, just four months before her death.

Lillard became the best-known remaining American iron-lung user after the 2024 death of Paul Alexander, a Texas lawyer who had also depended on one since childhood.

Her death marks the closing of a rare chapter in American medical history. Iron lungs were once among the most feared symbols of polio, but mass vaccination caused the disease to largely disappear in the United States and made the machines nearly obsolete.

Lillard’s life, however, was about far more than the machine that kept her alive.

he lived independently, created art, helped animals, traveled, fell in love and survived for decades beyond what doctors expected.

For more than 70 years, an iron lung helped Martha Lillard breathe. Her determination shaped the life she built with those breaths.