Martha Lillard | |
|---|---|
 Lillard in 1953 | |
| Born | Martha Ann Lillard June 8, 1948 Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Known for | Being the last known person to use the iron lung |
Martha Ann Lillard (born June 8, 1948) is an American polio survivor who lives in an iron lung. After Paul Alexander's death, she became the last known person to still live in an iron lung. She contracted polio in 1953, when she was five years old. [1]
Martha Ann Lillard was born on June 8, 1948, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. [2] [3] She says of the iron lung that "That's what keeps me healthy. That's what heals me. That's what allows me to breathe the next day." [3] She has a sister named Cindy and a brother-in-law named Daryl. [4]
Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday on June 8, 1953, with a party at Joyland, an amusement park in Oklahoma. On June 17, 1953, she woke up with a sore throat and pain in her neck. Her family took her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with polio. [5]
Later, she spent six months in the hospital, placed in a negative pressure ventilator informally called the iron lung, to help her breathe. In the end, she chose to live in the iron lung for the rest of her life. [5] In an NBC News interview in 2012, she said that when she was put in the iron lung, "it was a huge relief". [6]
Once, Lillard became trapped in her iron lung when an ice storm came through Oklahoma and her emergency generator failed to start, leaving her trapped in the device without heat. She tried to call 911 but failed. She said "It's like being buried alive almost, you know – it's so scary". [7]
After the death of Paul Alexander on March 11, 2024, Lillard became the last known person to still live in an iron lung. [8]
Lillard spends much of her time alone. She paints, watches old Hollywood movies and takes care of her beagles. She sought isolation throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing her relatives in the evenings. [1]
She was homeschooled for most of her childhood and unable to participate in most extracurricular activities, although she still remembers wanting to go camping with her siblings. She could not have children or hold a steady job because of her physical limitations. [1]
In a 2021 interview segment about her by National Public Radio, Radio Diaries, and All Things Considered, she said she was having trouble finding replacement parts to keep her machine running. [6]