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to view. From

2:03

PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries.

2:05

I'm Joe Rickman. This

2:07

is polio. Polio

2:09

is not over. Polio

2:11

is not over for thousands. Polio

2:14

is not over for you. In

2:17

1952, polio was spreading across the

2:19

country. Victims found themselves

2:21

with a stiff neck or difficulty breathing. Many

2:24

of them were children. One

2:26

remedy was the iron lung, a big

2:28

metal ventilator that encases the body from the

2:31

neck to the toes. It

2:33

uses bellows to suck air in and out,

2:35

allowing the person to breathe. Ladies

2:38

and gentlemen, you are looking at the business

2:40

end of an iron lung. And

2:42

that sound that you'll hear is the air

2:45

being forced into the lung so that the

2:47

patient can breathe. Today,

2:49

the iron lung is obsolete. In

2:51

recent years, only two people in America have

2:54

continued to use the machine. One

2:56

was Paul Alexander. He was

2:58

paralyzed by polio at the age of six. Even

3:01

though he lived most of his life in an iron

3:03

lung, Paul was tenacious. He wrote a

3:05

book by typing with his mouth. He

3:07

went to law school and practiced in an office. He

3:10

may have even seen him on TikTok, where he talked about his

3:12

life. Paul Alexander died

3:14

this month at the age of 78. A

3:18

few years ago, I interviewed Paul. He

3:20

was able to spend some time out of the lung

3:22

each day, but breathing still took a lot of energy

3:24

and effort. So getting back into

3:26

the iron lung always felt like a relief. His

3:29

description of that feeling has always stayed with me.

3:32

Here's Paul Alexander in 2021

3:35

speaking from inside his iron lung. When

3:38

you turn it on, so

3:41

that's like that first breath. It's

3:45

like being bored again. The

3:49

sound of the

3:51

motor running. That's

3:54

my constant soul. I

3:58

Like silence. I

4:01

was reading better. Life

4:05

is a struggle for

4:07

me. My. Face

4:10

v tears crowd to

4:12

cram a whole array

4:14

cut bait. why would

4:16

somebody to be. As

4:24

I said earlier, Paul Alexander wasn't the

4:26

last person on the country living in

4:28

an iron lung today. And the show.

4:30

We're revisiting the story of Martha Lowered.

4:33

This is my Ironman. A

4:39

tight. Mother.

4:47

My name is Martha Little are. Not

4:50

live in Oklahoma and. I

4:52

had stat sixty six years of

4:54

my life sleeping in an iron.

4:56

Lung. It's a

4:59

big metal cylinder with a

5:01

caught. That roles

5:03

in and out. It has a leather

5:05

balance on the end of it. When

5:08

the bellows does out, that's when

5:11

you breathe in. At

5:14

the end of the day when I

5:16

get in there, it's like a very

5:18

deep breath and a lot of time

5:20

that I've been having. Throughout

5:22

the day pretty much as Don't. Let.

5:25

The main problem I've had with it is

5:28

just parts. There came

5:30

a point in the nineties and

5:32

I to nani the iron lung

5:34

was breaking down well it was

5:36

just one thing and saying and

5:38

I was afraid it was gonna

5:40

quit working. So I

5:42

started looking for another month of hospitals

5:45

and had them in their vices there

5:47

and museums as I didn't want to

5:49

get rid of them. And

5:52

I found the store in Utah that had more. it

5:55

probably scares me more than i would

5:57

like to admit the i might read

5:59

down and I wouldn't be able to

6:01

breathe and you know I

6:04

mean if it breaks down I don't last too long.

6:14

Around 1952 I think it

6:17

was really a serious epidemic year for polio, 52,

6:19

53. Deserted

6:22

beaches became a sign of the Crippler's

6:24

presence. No swimmers or boaters

6:27

where crowds would normally be in

6:29

summertime. A children's playground with

6:31

not a child in sight. I

6:34

remember my mother being careful so she

6:37

pretty much kept us at home. Children

6:40

were not allowed to leave their own yards. It

6:43

was as though people had shut themselves

6:45

up in their houses trying to hide

6:47

from an unseen and deadly enemy, not

6:50

daring even to venture upon the streets.

6:53

But I had been wanting to have my

6:55

fifth birthday party at

6:57

our local amusement park. It was just a

6:59

small little park and I think

7:01

that's where I caught the polio. The

7:07

day before I got sick my

7:09

neck was kind of sore, my throat was sore. But

7:12

I went to bed and went to sleep and when

7:14

I woke up it hurt really bad. I

7:17

couldn't raise my head off the pillow and

7:19

I could hear my dad in the bathroom brushing his

7:21

teeth. My mom was putting

7:23

the laundry in the dryer so I

7:26

just kind of wanted to lie there and listen to that for a

7:28

little while because I knew once

7:30

I told them about this it was going

7:33

to be very different. After

7:36

a few minutes I called them in there and

7:39

I just told them I had polio. As

7:42

epidemics grow in community after community a

7:45

steady stream of victims was rushed

7:47

to hospitals. Men, women,

7:51

children. As always,

7:54

especially children. I

7:57

was in with the call of isolation. It

8:00

was in the top room of the hospital. I

8:03

just deteriorated real fast. I

8:06

turned blue from lack of oxygen. So

8:09

then they determined to put me in the iron lung.

8:13

Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at the

8:15

business end of an iron lung. And

8:18

that sound that you hear is the air

8:21

being forced into the lung so that the

8:23

patient can breathe. The

8:26

minute they put me in it, I woke up. And

8:29

I felt so good because I'd been feeling

8:31

so bad. It was

8:33

like it fixed everything. I

8:37

was breathing again. There

8:44

was a young nurse there and she said,

8:46

would you like a Coke? Mother

8:48

only allowed us to drink Coke's

8:51

on the weekend. And

8:53

I said, sure. And she

8:55

gave me a Coke and I drank the whole bottle. And

8:58

she said, would you like another one? And

9:00

I said, sure. She got me another bottle and I

9:02

drank it. She said, would

9:05

you like another one? And

9:07

I just thought, oh man, you know,

9:09

I'm getting away with murder here. You

9:12

know, what I didn't realize was that for four

9:15

days I hadn't been eating or drinking. There

9:20

were two people in our lungs just

9:22

beside me. There was Bobby Slayton

9:24

and she was 15. And

9:27

there was the lady. I only called the lady because I

9:29

really don't know what her name was. She

9:31

was 21. And

9:33

after a while the lady died. But

9:37

Bobby survived. I

9:42

was in the hospital six months. And

9:45

Dr. Pearson told me I could come home around

9:48

Christmas. I did

9:50

have to pretty much be in the island full time. Mother

9:54

would get me out for 30 minutes, 40 minutes,

9:56

an hour. The

9:59

focus was to get my son to the hospital. to be independent to

10:02

get as much like I had been as before. I

10:07

went to school for an hour a

10:09

day. I couldn't

10:11

sit up, you know, in the classroom for

10:13

very long because of the pain in

10:16

my back. It was very

10:18

painful to sit in a chair for even

10:20

an hour. And then in

10:23

the eighth grade, they decided to

10:25

let us attend school with

10:28

what they call the school to home phone.

10:31

For the handicapped, it was a speaker

10:33

phone and you could have that

10:35

in your home and you just turned it on and

10:38

you could press a button and talk to the teacher and you

10:40

could hear what the teacher was

10:42

saying and the students, you

10:44

know, they were really friendly to me

10:46

over the speaker phone and

10:49

I got to know some of them, but it was

10:51

hard not being able to identify

10:53

all of them. I

11:00

never got to do all the things that I wanted

11:02

to, but there was a

11:04

friend of mine who taught me to

11:08

look in a way that I had never really

11:10

looked at things before. She was

11:12

my neighbor, Karen Rapp. Karen

11:14

taught me to look

11:16

at a small world. She

11:18

noticed a lot of insects and we would get

11:21

on the ground and check

11:23

out the ants and how they functioned.

11:26

We would build little villages on the ground.

11:29

Tiny little grass huts and things in

11:31

Adobe houses. I

11:33

learned to look at small things and

11:36

to really appreciate them. There's

11:39

much more to see if you really look for it.

11:44

Being handicapped affected my

11:46

relationships. When I was

11:48

young, a lot of

11:50

the parents of boys didn't want their

11:52

sons dating someone who was handicapped, but

11:55

then later it didn't seem to really bother

11:57

them. And I met.

12:00

Ray in 1989. We

12:03

were together for well about 28

12:05

years up until he moved into

12:07

the nursing home. I

12:09

could never have children. I just

12:11

already knew because of my breathing that I couldn't

12:13

do that. Well

12:16

it's difficult you know because basically I'm

12:18

alone all the time. My

12:20

sister does come over at eight o'clock in the evening

12:23

to help feed the dogs and open some

12:26

cans for me but

12:29

I have gotten trapped in the iron lung a couple

12:31

of times. Like

12:33

last October we had

12:35

an ice storm come through here, a terrible

12:38

ice storm, and

12:40

I had no power and ordinarily

12:42

my generator would come on but

12:45

the battery had died on it. So

12:48

I was lying there in the

12:50

cold. It's like being

12:52

buried alive almost you know it's so scary.

12:56

And so I thought I'd better call 911. They

12:58

said I'm sorry this number isn't available. So

13:01

obviously the cell phones, the towers

13:03

weren't working. I was

13:05

having trouble breathing and I remember

13:07

saying out loud to myself I'm not

13:09

gonna die. I'm not

13:12

gonna die. And

13:16

then the cell phone finally started working

13:19

as the people came from 911 so

13:22

then everything was okay. I

13:30

don't like having to be in the iron lung. I would rather

13:32

I didn't have to use it. That

13:34

was my big goal was to be free of that

13:36

but I never did really become independent of it.

13:41

People have said Martha doesn't want to be

13:43

modern you know she's dependent on

13:45

the iron lung. I have assessed this thing and

13:48

I have tried every kind of

13:50

intellectuality. NEB100

13:53

positive pressure, the

13:55

Monahan, the Thompson, the

13:57

Emerson RAP which is basically

14:00

a big piece of plastic that wrapped around your

14:02

body. I've tried all the

14:04

forms of ventilation. The iron

14:06

lung is the most efficient and

14:09

the best and the most comfortable way. So

14:13

I just wanted people to understand that it's not, oh,

14:16

I want to be in the iron lung. That's

14:18

not true. I would rather

14:20

not need it at all. But

14:23

sometimes when I get in there, I say, thank

14:25

you. It

14:28

feels wonderful to get into it. It's

14:31

the thing that's been there that saved my life. And

14:34

I know that it's the only thing that's kept me

14:36

here. Martha

14:46

Lillard. Her story originally

14:48

aired on NPR and this podcast back in

14:50

2021. Martha

14:53

says maintenance of the iron lung is still a challenge

14:55

for her. While she has

14:57

a few extra collars for the lung, regular

14:59

upkeep is always difficult. Thanks

15:01

to Martha for sharing her story. Also, thanks

15:04

to Erin Kelly for co-producing this story with

15:06

us and for introducing us to Martha. And

15:08

thanks again to Paul Alexander, who you heard at the top

15:11

of the show. If you want

15:13

to know more about Paul's life, you can get

15:15

his book called Three Minutes for a Dog, My

15:17

Life in an Iron Lung. The

15:31

Radio Diaries team includes Nellie Gillis,

15:33

Micah Hazel, Elisa Scarsay, Lena Englestein

15:36

and herself. Our editors are

15:38

Deborah George, Ben Shapiro. We're

15:40

part of Radio Topia from PRX, a collective

15:42

of the best independent podcasts around. You can

15:44

listen to all the shows at radiotopia.fm. We

15:47

have support for the National Endowment for the Humanities,

15:49

the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York

15:51

State Council on the Arts, and for

15:54

listeners like you. The

15:56

song you're hearing right now is Iron Lung

15:58

by Taylor Phelan and The Cage. I'm

16:01

to Richmond. thankfully. He.

16:26

Radioed. A

16:29

I am.