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A man who lived in an iron lung for seven decades after contracting polio as a child has died.
Paul Alexander, of Dallas in Texas, US, was paralysed by the virus at the age of six in 1952.
He was rushed to hospital after developing symptoms and woke up inside a mechanical lung. Mr Alexander, who was given the name ‘the man with the iron lung’, lived inside it for the rest of his life.
According to a Gofundme page set up to help pay for Mr Alexander’s care, he died on Monday.
Fundraising organiser Christopher Ulmer wrote: “Paul, you will be missed but always remembered. Thanks for sharing your story with us.”
Mr Alexander, of Dallas in Texas, was paralysed by the virus at the age of six in 1952
The iron lung acted as a diaphragm to help Mr Alexander breathe after a doctor performed a tracheotomy on him to remove the congestion from his lungs following his polio infection.
He was unable to move or talk inside the metal casing, and would often go unwashed because he was unable to communicate with the nurses looking after him.
Mr Alexander was one of many children placed inside iron lungs during an outbreak of polio in the US during the 1950s.
Mr Alexander pictured inside his ‘iron lung’
He later got into university and obtained a law degree, but was unable to leave the iron lung. He also published his own memoir in April 2020.
Polio is a serious infection that is now very rare in both the US and UK because of a vaccination programme. It is now only found in a few countries and the chance of getting it is very low.
Health officials declared a national incident after the polio virus was identified in sewage samples taken from London between February and May 2022, but no associated cases appeared to have been identified.
There have been no confirmed cases of paralysis due to polio caught in the UK since 1984.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, frequent epidemics saw polio become one of the most feared diseases in the world.
A major outbreak in New York City in 1916 killed more than 2,000 people, and the worst recorded US outbreak in 1952 killed over 3,000.
Source: independent.co.uk
