On June 8, 1953, Martha Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday at a happy party at an amusement park in Oklahoma.
A little less than a week later, she woke up in the morning with a sore throat and sore neck.
Her parents took her to the local hospital, where she was diagnosed with polio (polio).
Little Martha spent the next six months in this hospital, attached to an "iron lung" - a huge metal container that served as the soul machine in those years, and many of the children who contracted the polio virus and needed respiratory help were connected to it.
But Lillard's case is unusual because she uses this device to this day, and depends on it to survive - one of the last in the world, if not the only one.
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Polio is a deadly disease, and from the late 1940s to the 1950s it was a plague that sowed terror in the hearts of millions of parents around the world, who watched helplessly in hospitals fill small children who became infected and became paralyzed, disabled and sometimes paid with their lives. .
Salvation finally came in 1955, in the form of the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonah Salk (and later, perfected by Dr. Albert Sabin), which over the years managed to eradicate the virus almost completely.
In 2019, only 175 cases of polio were documented worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
And today there are only two active foci of the virus - in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A two-year-old toddler attached to an iron lung at Louisville Kentucky Hospital, 1959 (Photo: AP)
Most polio sufferers did not show any visible symptoms, but in some cases the infection was severe and caused damage to the brain or spine, causing paralysis.
In the case of Martha Lillard, the virus greatly weakened her respiratory muscles, making it difficult for her to breathe independently.
The iron lung saved her life and allowed her to survive.
How does the iron lung work?
Iron lungs are large machines - one is about two meters long. The patient lies inside the metal container with only his head peeking out from the edge and a rubber valve around the patient's neck seals the container and creates a vacuum inside. Blowers at the base of the machine actually replace the diaphragm action and produce negative pressure that pushes air into the patient's lungs and fills them, then positive pressure that allows the patient to exhale air.
For 68 years, Iron Shrine has kept Martha Lillard alive - she sleeps in it every night. Most people who have contracted polio have been able to get rid of the dependence on iron creation, and if not, they have replaced it with a different type of respirator, newer, more sophisticated and also - more compact. But not to Lillard. "I have tried all types of respiration. Iron lung is the most effective and comfortable type for me," she said in a conversation with the "Public Diaries" program on U.S. Public Radio npr.
"I have tried all types of respiration. The iron lung is the most effective and comfortable type for me."
Iron Lung (Photo: ShutterStock)
Iron lung is today a historical item, and is more likely to be found in museums or collectors than in anyone at home.
In the 1990s, when the machine that was in Lillard's home began to show signs of aging and spoilage, she tried to look for an alternative iron lung.
She went to many museums and hospitals to see if they might have iron lungs somewhere that she could buy from.
But most of them had long since got rid of these old machines, and those who still owned one of the collectibles did not agree to sell it.
She eventually managed to locate a man in Utah who held an old iron creation and agreed to sell it to her.
This is the machine she uses to this day.
No electricity, no heating: trapped inside an iron lung
In the past, it was possible to get service for the iron lungs from a company called Philips Resperonics, but according to Lillard she received only minimal assistance from this company. On one occasion a technician sent by the company disassembled the machine to repair it, and wanted to go without finishing assembling it back. Another time, Lillard got stuck inside the machine: it was during a power outage that happened during an ice storm that hit Oklahoma. The electricity went down, and for some reason even its emergency generator did not work and it was trapped inside the iron lung, at freezing temperatures, without heating.
"It felt like being buried while I was alive ... it's so scary," she recalled.
She said she tried to call for help, but the cellular networks also did not work properly due to the stormy weather.
"I had a hard time breathing and I remember saying to myself out loud all the time, 'I'm not going to die.'"
Sometime the cellular reception came back and Lillard was able to call for help, but even then the obstacles did not end.
Emergency personnel who came to help her never saw an iron lung, they did not know what it was and did not know how to get her out of there.
Luckily, they were at least able to get the emergency generator to start working, and Lillard was able to extricate herself.
A ward for polio patients at a Boston hospital during the outbreak of the plague in August 1955 (Photo: AP)
Currently, Martha's biggest concern is the wear and tear of the machine parts and the difficulty in obtaining spare parts.
The iron lung strips should be replaced every few weeks, the bed inside - every six months and the engine should be replaced every 12 years or so.
What it lacks most is a stock of collars - the rubber collar is the one that allows to produce the vacuum critical to the operation of the machine.
The collar can only be used for a few months and then has to be replaced, and Lillard has already acquired all the last inventory left from the companies that previously manufactured these collars and stopped production.
"This is the thing I have the hardest time with. I try to pull the time and use each collar as long as I can. But as they start to wear out it becomes harder and harder for me to breathe because their sealant is damaged and the air starts to leak out," she explains.
She has only a few more collars left in stock.
"I'm really desperate. The thing that scares me the most right now is that I will not be able to find someone who knows how to make such collars."
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Lillard lives alone and spends most of her time alone.
She loves to draw and watch old-fashioned Hollywood movies and she raises some beagle dogs.
Since the outbreak of the corona epidemic she has barely left her home and is staying in social isolation.
Occasionally she meets up with her sister, Cindy.
The fact that Martha fell ill at such a young age caused her to lose a lot of the life experiences that many of us take for granted.
She could not go to school, so she attended homeschooling for most of her childhood, and could not take part in social activities, classes or trips.
To this day she remembers how much she longed to go on a camping trip, like her brother.
Her physical limitations also did not allow her to have children or hold a stable job.
But in spite of everything, Martha Lillard is grateful for the life she had, and for the iron lung.
"She is the one who keeps me alive. She is the one who heals me. She is what allows me to take another breath and get to the next day. I see her as a friend, a very dear friend."
