Hours each day in an iron lung kept her breathing, her will to live kept her alive

Martha Lillard, who recently died at age 78 in Oklahoma, was the last American polio patient dependent on an iron lung, which she used for approximately 73 years after contracting the disease as a five-year-old in the mid-1950s. Despite requiring hours daily inside the large metal breathing apparatus, she lived a remarkably independent life, learning to drive a modified vehicle, painting landscapes, and even marrying her partner of over 20 years just months before her death. Her family attributes her passing to complications from long COVID-19, though officially she died from post-polio syndrome and chronic pulmonary failure.