Paul Alexander lived in an iron lung for 72 years.
Photo: Gofundme
He was only six years old when he contracted polio and was placed in a so-called iron lung – a cylinder-shaped machine that surrounds the person being treated and which, through pressure changes, helps him breathe.
Iron lungs were used to help people paralyzed by polio to breathe and have now been replaced by respirators. Paul Alexander was one of the last people in the world to be treated in an iron lung.
A hospital hall filled with polio patients in iron lungs in 1953
Photo: CSU Archives/Everett Collection / TT NEWS AGENCY
In the summer of 1952, he contracted polio and woke up in an iron lung – which would become the place where he would spend the majority of his life, reports Sky news.
After Paul Alexander learned to breathe on his own, he was able to leave the iron lung for a few hours at a time and he did not let the paralysis and the iron lung stop him from living.
Became a lawyer
In May 2020 wrote The Guardian a report on Paul Alexander. They then described how during his life he had attended college and university, flown airplanes, gone to strip clubs, fallen in love, seen the sea and attended church. Against all odds, he both trained as a lawyer and became a writer.
– I knew that if I was going to do something with my life, it had to be a mental thing. I wasn’t going to be a basketball player, he told The Guardian in connection with the report.
In the last years, he was once more forced to live in the iron lung around the clock and suffered from several health problems. Among other things, he had recurring respiratory infections and chronic pain in his legs. He died on March 11, 2024, aged 78.
READ MORE: Premium Trump’s ‘miracle medicine’ may have killed thousands
