Martha Lillard | |
|---|---|
 Lillard in 1953 | |
| Born | Martha Ann Lillard June 8, 1948 Shawnee, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Being the last person in the iron lung |
| Family | Cindy (sister), Daryl (brother-in-law) |
Martha Ann Lillard [1] (born June 8, 1948) is an American polio survivor who is still living in an iron lung. She became the only person after Paul Alexander's death still living in the iron lung. She contracted polio in 1953 when she was five years old. [2]
Martha Ann Lillard was born on June 8, 1948 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. [3] As a child, Lillard once had a friend named Karen Rapp, the one she would later call "that's what keeps me healthy. That's what heals me. That's what allows me to breathe the next day"; [3] she also has a sister named Cindy and a brother-in-law named Daryl. [4]
During the 1950s in the United States, there were documented cases of polio, including Lillard. Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday on June 8, 1953 with a party at Joyland, an amusement park in Oklahoma. On June 17, 1953, over 1 week after her fifth birthday, 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 giant metal tank, 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] Lillard at that time was one of the last people in the United States still using an iron lung. [6] In an NBC News interview in 2012, she said that when she was put in the iron lung, "When I first got into this, it was a huge relief." [7]
Lillard has gotten stuck in the iron lung once 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 called the situation "It's like being buried alive almost, you know — it's so scary". [8]
After Paul Alexander died on March 11, 2024, Lillard became the only person who is still living in the iron lung. [9]
Lillard spends much of her time alone. She paints, watches old Hollywood movies and takes care of her beagles. She has been mostly isolating throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing her sister Cindy and her brother-in-law Daryl in the evenings. [2]
She was homeschooled for most of her childhood and unable to participate in most extracurricular activities, though she still remembers wanting to go camping with her siblings. She cannot have children or hold a steady job because of her physical limitations. [2]
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. [7]
Dark Victory is a 1939 American melodrama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis, and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Casey Robinson was based on the 1934 play of the same title by George Brewer and Bertram Bloch, starring Tallulah Bankhead.
An iron lung is a type of negative pressure ventilator (NPV), a mechanical respirator which encloses most of a person's body and varies the air pressure in the enclosed space to stimulate breathing. It assists breathing when muscle control is lost, or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability. Need for this treatment may result from diseases including polio and botulism and certain poisons.
Cindy Walker was an American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. She wrote many popular and enduring songs recorded by many artists.
Cindy Lee Sheehan is an American anti-war activist, whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. She attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended antiwar protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch—a stand that drew both passionate support and criticism. Sheehan ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She was a vocal critic of President Barack Obama's foreign policy. Her memoir, Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism, was published in 2006. In an interview with The Daily Beast in 2017, Sheehan continued to hold her critical views towards George W. Bush, while also criticizing the militarism of Donald Trump.
The history of polio (poliomyelitis) infections began during prehistory. Although major polio epidemics were unknown before the 20th century, the disease has caused paralysis and death for much of human history. Over millennia, polio survived quietly as an endemic pathogen until the 1900s when major epidemics began to occur in Europe. Soon after, widespread epidemics appeared in the rest of the world. By 1910, frequent epidemics became regular events throughout the developed world primarily in cities during the summer months. At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, polio would paralyze or kill over half a million people worldwide every year.
Martha Jane Rountree was an American pioneering broadcast journalist and entrepreneur. She was the creator and first moderator of a public-affairs program, first on radio as The American Mercury from June 24, 1945 to 1947, and as Meet the Press on the NBC television network from November 6, 1947 to November 1, 1953. Until Kristen Welker took over on September 17, 2023, Rountree was the only female moderator in the seven-decade history of the show.
Virginia Grace Wilson "Gini" Laurie was a central figure in the 20th century development, in the United States, of the independent living movement for people with disabilities. It is sometimes said that she was one of its two "grandmothers"—the other one being Mary Switzer, who was in charge of vocational rehabilitation at the national level from 1950 to 1970.
Dianne Odell was a Tennessee woman who spent most of her life in an iron lung. She contracted bulbospinal polio at age 3 in 1950 and was confined to an iron lung for the rest of her life. Due to a spinal deformity caused by the polio, she was unable to change to a portable breathing device introduced in the late 1950s. Odell's condition was not as severe in youth and she could spend short periods outside the machine until her 20s; from then on she needed to be in it 24 hours a day. Caregivers could still slide Odell's bedding out of her iron lung for basic nursing care but only briefly.
Cindy Lee Berryhill is an American singer-songwriter, co-founder of the New York Antifolk movement, who recorded multiple albums, hit singles, and compilations over the years.
Martha Mason was a writer born and based in Lattimore, North Carolina who spent 61 years in an iron lung.
June Margaret Middleton was an Australian polio survivor who spent more than 60 years living in an iron lung for treatment of the disease. In 2006, Guinness World Records recognised her as the person who had spent the longest amount of time living in an iron lung. This record has since been surpassed by American lawyer Paul Alexander and Martha Lillard.
Krystal Ladawn Covel Sandubrae, known professionally as Krystal Keith is an American country music singer.
Barnstable County Hospital was a public hospital located in Pocasset, Massachusetts, owned and operated by Barnstable County. Opened in 1918 as a tuberculosis sanatorium, the hospital served several purposes over its existence, including hosting children's summer camp in the 1920s and 30s, being fitted with iron lungs during the polio epidemic of the 1940s, and finally being utilized as a rehabilitation and long-term care facility in the 80s and 90s.
Lillard is a surname of French origin. Through Norman and Huguenot migration, it is found mostly in the British isles and their colonies. Notable people with the surname include:
Ann Adams (1926-1992) was an American artist who, after becoming almost fully paralyzed due to poliomyelitis, re-learned to draw by using a pencil held in her mouth.
Paul Richard Alexander was an American paralytic polio survivor, lawyer and writer. The last man to live in an iron lung, he contracted polio in 1952 at the age of six. Alexander earned a bachelor's degree and Juris Doctor at the University of Texas at Austin, and was admitted to the bar in 1986. He self-published a memoir in 2020.
Floy LaVonne Currey Schoenfelder was an American disability rights advocate. She co-founded and directed the Polio Survivors Foundation, based in Reseda, California.
Lillard Lee Hill Jr. was an American broadcast journalist, diplomat, and statesman who worked in radio and television in Oklahoma and Texas and served as a foreign correspondent for Voice of America and worked for the United States Information Agency and the US State Department.
Patricia Kirkland was an American actress.