Martha Lillard, last US polio survivor dependent on an iron lung, dies in Oklahoma at 78

A life defined by a machine

Martha Lillard, who was 78, died on 26 June in Oklahoma. She was the last known polio survivor in the United States who still depended on an iron lung to breathe, her sister Cindy McVey told The Associated Press. Lillard contracted the virus in 1953 at the age of five, two years before the first polio vaccine was introduced in the US. The infection paralysed large parts of her body and permanently damaged her respiratory muscles. An official cause of death has not been released, but McVey attributes her sister’s passing to the lingering effects of long-haul Covid-19, citing two prior coronavirus infections. In her final days, her health had steadily deteriorated, McVey told local broadcaster KFOR.

They told her she wasn't supposed to live past 20 years old. She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.

The failing machinery

While other polio survivors were able to switch to modern ventilators over the decades, Lillard remained dependent on the iron lung. She had tried various alternatives, she told KFOR shortly before her death, but none provided the breathing support she needed. By the end, she was reliant on the machine around the clock. Maintenance of the decades-old device had become increasingly difficult: spare parts from the 1940s were virtually unobtainable, and no technician could be found who was still able to repair it, McVey explained. The iron lung is a large metal cylinder that uses alternating air pressure to force air in and out of a patient’s lungs, and it became a defining symbol of the fight against polio before effective vaccines arrived in the 1950s.

Creativity and independence

Despite her severe physical limitations, Lillard remained independent and creative, her family said on a GoFundMe page. She painted, wrote poetry and composed music on a piano. She attended grade school for two hours each day and completed the rest of her studies through tutoring. Later, she attended Shawnee High School remotely via a phone system and intercom. The family went to extraordinary lengths to accommodate her, building custom trailers for road trips and having her father call hotels ahead to check whether doorways were wide enough for the machine. For a period, Lillard was even able to drive a car. “To me, it was just normal,” McVey, now 75, recalled of their upbringing.

A late marriage and a digital life

The internet became a vital tool for Lillard in later years, allowing her to research her condition. Her right arm was paralysed and movement in her left was limited, yet she lived independently for many years and prepared her own meals. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, she sought to understand the events better and met Baha Salh in an online chat room. The two communicated for more than two decades. Lillard and Salh finally married in February after he secured a visa to travel to Oklahoma. “They were really soulmates,” McVey said, adding that Salh is “extremely brokenhearted” by her death.

A disease nearly erased by vaccines

Polio once caused thousands of paralysis cases annually in the US, primarily affecting children. The introduction of vaccines in 1955 triggered a sharp decline: fewer than 100 cases per year by the 1960s, and fewer than 10 by the 1970s. By 1979, the disease was declared eliminated in the US, meaning routine transmission had ceased. Globally, vaccination campaigns have since prevented roughly 20 million people from paralysis and saved 1.5 million lives, according to the World Health Organization. The last prominent user of the historic device, Paul Alexander, died in March 2024 at the age of 78 after more than 70 years inside an iron lung. With Lillard’s death, her family and several media reports note that an extraordinary chapter of medical history has likely come to an end.