Martha Lillard, the last known US person living with polio and relying on an iron lung, has passed away at the age of 78. She died on 26 June 2026 in Oklahoma, according to an online obituary. Lillard contracted polio at the age of five and spent most of her life reliant on the breathing device that helped her breathe.
Lillard slept inside the metal cylinder device, which enclosed her body while changing air pressure within forced air in and out of her lungs. Despite this, she attended grade school for two hours daily before completing the rest of her education through tutoring. Her family made it possible for her to travel, taking road trips to Missouri in a custom trailer after her father contacted hotels to ensure their doors were wide enough to accommodate her iron lung.
Lillard's death comes two years after the passing of Paul Alexander, the Texas man who gained international attention while spending much of his life in an iron lung after contracting polio at the age of six. Before vaccines became widely available, polio was among the most feared diseases in the US, with yearly outbreaks leaving thousands of people paralyzed, most of them children.
Iron lungs helped save thousands of lives during those epidemics, although they were intended only for short-term use. As vaccination campaigns expanded in the late 1950s, the machines largely disappeared and were replaced by other breathing devices inserted directly into the throat.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says widespread vaccination reduced annual US polio cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s. In 1979, polio was declared eliminated in the US, meaning it was no longer routinely spread.