Martha Lillard, last U.S. polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in Oklahoma
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- Martha Lillard died June 26 in Oklahoma at 78, identified as the last U.S. polio patient still using an iron lung, her sister Cindy McVey told The Associated Press.
- Lillard was diagnosed with polio at age 5 and depended on the iron lung cylinder, which encased her body and used air pressure to force air in and out of her lungs.
- McVey attributed her sister's death to long-haul Covid-19; the death certificate lists chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome as causes.
- Lillard contracted Covid-19 twice during the pandemic and, with less than 25% lung capacity beforehand, spent the last two years confined to the iron lung nearly 24 hours a day.
- Lillard met her future husband Baha Salh in a post-9/11 chat room and married him in February after he obtained a visa to travel from Egypt to Oklahoma.
- Lillard wrote her own obituary, describing herself as a Humane Society volunteer and avid Beagle rescuer, and later updated it to say she "died of long-haul Covid 19."
Why it matters: Lillard's death ends a chapter in American medical history: she was the final U.S. polio survivor still using the iron lung machines that sustained thousands of children before the 1955 vaccine. Her decline—two Covid infections on top of lungs already operating below 25% capacity, per her sister—shows how the coronavirus pandemic cut short one of the last lives preserved by the pre-vaccine era.
