An Oklahoma woman, who was the last American patient to rely on an iron lung to live after she was diagnosed with polio at 5 years old, has died. <\/p>\n
Martha Lillard, who spent most of her life using the once-common breathing machine after contracting polio as a child, died June 26 at age 78 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, her sister Cindy McVey told\u00a0The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey told her she wasn\u2019t supposed to live past 20 years old,\u201d McVey told the outlet on Friday. \u201cShe had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.\u201d<\/p>\n McVey said long COVID contributed to Lillard\u2019s death, while her death certificate lists chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome as the causes.<\/p>\n Martha Lillard, 78, the last US polio patient to use an iron lung, died June 26 in Oklahoma, her sister confirmed. KFOR Oklahoma’s News 4<\/p>\n Lillard was just 5 years old when she came down with polio on her birthday in 1953 \u2014 two years before the first vaccine became available in the US.<\/p>\n \u201cI woke up and it was sunny outside, and I started to sit up, and my neck was killing me,\u201d Lillard\u00a0told KFOR<\/a>\u00a0just days before her death. \u201cI couldn\u2019t lift my head off the pillow.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter four days, I went unconscious. I couldn\u2019t breathe. I couldn\u2019t move my arms or legs.\u201d<\/p>\n Lillard spent six months in the hospital, much of that time inside an iron lung, a full-body ventilator that uses changing air pressure to help patients breathe.<\/p>\n \u201cThey usually didn\u2019t like to put children in because [children] fought it, but I didn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cI liked it. It felt good to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n Martha Lillard rests in her iron lung on Feb. 6, 2026 in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Cindy McVey via AP<\/p>\n Polio was\u00a0once one of America\u2019s most feared diseases<\/a>, leaving thousands of children paralyzed during annual outbreaks before the vaccine became available in 1955. It was\u00a0declared eliminated from routine spread in the US<\/a>\u00a0in 1979.<\/p>\n Lillard eventually regained the ability to walk, but her right arm remained paralyzed and she lived with less than 25% lung capacity, according to a\u00a0GoFundMe for her memorial.<\/p>\n She used the iron lung while sleeping for years before post-polio syndrome and two bouts of COVID-19 left her dependent on it nearly around the clock during the final two years of her life.<\/p>\n Despite her condition, Lillard attended school, lived on her own for years, cooked for herself and even drove. <\/p>\n Lillard, who contracted polio at 5, outlived doctor predictions, with her sister attributing her death to long-haul COVID-19. KFOR Oklahoma’s News 4<\/p>\n Her family took road trips with a custom trailer built to transport the massive iron lung.<\/p>\n Lillard also leaves behind her husband, Baha Salh, an Egyptian man whom she met on the internet and married in February. <\/p>\n Lillard met Baha Salh after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when she joined an online chat room to learn more about what had happened and stay up to date with current events.<\/p>\n They spent more than 20 years talking online before marrying in February after he was finally granted a visa to travel to Oklahoma.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were really soulmates,\u201d McVey said. \u201cHe\u2019s extremely brokenhearted.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite paralysis, Lillard prepared meals and even married a man in February after chatting to him online for 20 years. KFOR Oklahoma’s News 4<\/p>\n Lillard painted, wrote poetry and composed music for the left-hand piano. She also volunteered with the Humane Society and helped rescue abandoned dogs.<\/p>\n Last year, when a tornado knocked out power to her iron lung, her husband kept her alive by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until help arrived, KFOR reported.<\/p>\n In recent years, Lillard and her family searched for someone who could repair the aging machine, whose parts dated back to the 1940s.<\/p>\n \u201cBut since she\u2019s the last one, we don\u2019t need that anymore,\u201d McVey said.<\/p>\n With Post wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Oklahoma woman, who was the last American patient to rely on an iron lung to live after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,53168,137,373423,9488,18107,373424,31481,3371,3780],"class_list":["post-793529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-deaths","tag-health","tag-inspirational","tag-inspiring","tag-medical-care","tag-medical-miracles","tag-obituaries","tag-oklahoma","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}