‘The Last Of The Iron Lungs’

I’m going to be honest… and this might give away my age… but while I have heard of “iron lungs” I didn’t actually know what they were or what they look like.

Anyway… I found this SO interesting, and so, so sad.

Wow. I can’t even imagine.

According to this:

Meet America’s last iron lung users.

Once the most feared virus on the planet, polio was wiped out in the United States in in 1979 thanks to the success of the vaccine.

But while that’s good news for the world, a few polio survivors who rely on iron lungs to help them breathe are struggling to cope with their decades-old machines which are no longer covered by their insurance or serviced by manufacturers who stopped production in the 1960s.

Paul Alexander, 70, of Dallas, is one of just a handful of people around the world who needs the iron lung to survive.

Today, he spends almost every moment in the device after contracting polio as a five-year-old in 1952.

But he faced a crisis in 2015 when the machine began to malfunction. With no support from the manufacturers, his insurance companies, and parts only rarely available at great cost, he put out a YouTube video appealing for help.

Thankfully, Brady Richards, who runs the Environmental Testing Laboratory, and is a keen hobbyist mechanic saw the appeal and reached out.

‘I looked for years to find someone who knew how to work on iron lungs,’ Alexander told Gizmodo. ‘Brady Richards, it’s a miracle that I found him.’

Richards said when he brought the iron lung into his shop for repairs, his younger employees had never heard of it.

The respirator, which resembles a terrifying metal coffin, requires patients to lie down inside, with the device fastened tightly around their neck. It works by creating a vacuum to mechanically draw in oxygen to the lungs for patients whose central nervous system and respiratory function were ravaged by polio.

‘When we first brought the tube into the shop, one of my younger employees asked me what I was doing with these smoker grills,’ Richards said.

Despite being almost entirely paralyzed below the neck by the virus, Alexander went on to achieve his dream of becoming a trial lawyer.

‘When I transferred to University of Texas, they were horrified to think that I was going to bring my iron lung down, but I did, and I put it in the dorm, and I lived in the dorm with my iron lung,’ said Alexander, who used to represent clients from a wheelchair.

‘I had a thousand friends before it was over with, who all wanted to find out what’s that guy downstairs with a head sticking out of a machine doing here?’

This guys should serve as an inspiration to us all.

Despite his circumstances he’s been able to keep an incredible attitude and achieve his dreams.

Amazing.