The Last of the Iron Lungs
All the nurses were saying, ‘Just a second, you’ll be breathing in just a second.’ ” Martha Lillard
“The ‘yellow submarine’ is my necessary, trusted, mechanical friend.” Mona Randolph
“If there’s so many people who’ve not been- children, especially - have not been vaccinated . . . I don’t even want to think about it.” Paul Alexander
Decades after polio, Martha is among the last to still rely on an iron lung to breath
On June 8, 1953, Martha Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday with a party at an amusement park in Oklahoma. A little over a week later, she woke up with a sore throat and a pain in her neck.