The disease disfigures, disables and leaves people trapped.
For 73 years, Martha Lillard breathed with the help of a machine, a living testament to what polio — once among the most feared diseases in America — could take from a child in an instant. She died on June 26, 2026, at 78, the last known American to depend on an iron lung, closing a chapter that the nation had hoped was already history. Her death arrives at a disquieting moment: the very vaccination campaigns that eliminated polio in the United States by 1979 are now being questioned, and the institutional memory of what the disease truly costs is fading with the generation that bore its weight.
- The death of the last iron lung patient severs a living, breathing connection to the era when polio paralyzed tens of thousands of American children each year.
- Vaccine hesitancy is no longer a fringe concern — federal health officials are now openly suggesting polio vaccination be made optional, citing changed sanitation and risk profiles.
- Martha's sister, Cindy McVey, warns with tears that a generation of parents who have never seen polio's devastation are being swayed by misinformation toward choices that could resurrect it.
- Polio remains a ruthless pathogen: one in 200 infections causes irreversible paralysis, and up to 10% of those paralyzed die when the virus silences their breathing muscles.
- The elimination of polio in 1979 was not a natural endpoint but a hard-won, ongoing commitment — one that erodes the moment vaccination rates fall and institutional memory disappears.
Martha Lillard died on June 26 at the age of 78, and with her passed the last living chapter of an American medical era. Paralyzed by polio at five years old in the mid-1950s, she spent 73 years dependent on an iron lung — the negative-pressure machine that expanded her lungs for her, breath by mechanical breath. Her official cause of death was post-polio syndrome and chronic pulmonary failure, though her sister believes long Covid-19 hastened the end.
But confinement never fully claimed her. Her family engineered a modification that let her open the iron lung herself — a freedom most patients never had. She learned to drive using a lap-mounted steering wheel and floor-level turn signals. She painted landscapes, kept beagles, and spent more than two decades with her partner Baha Salh, whom she married just months before her death after he emigrated from Egypt. "She was resilient," her sister Cindy McVey told the BBC. "She would find a way, or make do."
Polio is unsparing: the World Health Organization estimates one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, and between 5 and 10 percent of those paralyzed die when the virus reaches their breathing muscles. The United States broke the disease's grip through a nationwide vaccination campaign, achieving elimination in 1979 — a triumph that now faces erosion. Kirk Milhoan, chair of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, suggested earlier this year that polio vaccination should become optional, arguing that modern sanitation has changed the risk equation.
McVey's response was anguished. "Polio is terrible," she said, tears in her eyes. "The disease disfigures, disables and leaves people trapped. We had it under control here and now we have all these people who aren't vaccinating their children." She fears that as the memory of polio fades, so too does the will to prevent its return — and that her sister's 73 years inside a metal cylinder will mean nothing to a generation that never had to witness what the disease can do.
Martha Lillard died on June 26 at the age of 78, marking the end of an era in American medicine. She was the last known polio patient in the United States still using an iron lung—the mechanical breathing device that kept her alive for 73 years, ever since she contracted the disease at five years old in the mid-1950s.
But Lillard's life was not one of confinement. Her younger sister, Cindy McVey, told the BBC that Martha refused to let the large metal cylinder that encased her body for hours each day become a prison. She learned to drive, thanks to a retrofitted vehicle with the steering wheel positioned in her lap and turn signals on the floor. She painted detailed landscapes. She kept beagles. She maintained a relationship with her partner of more than two decades, Baha Salh, whom she married in February after he obtained a visa to move from Egypt to the United States. Her uncle and grandfather had engineered a contraption that allowed her to open the iron lung herself, giving her an independence most patients with the device never achieved. "She could do things most iron lung patients couldn't do," McVey said. "She was resilient, she would find a way, or make do."
The iron lung works through negative pressure—a motor powers bellows that suck air from inside the cylinder, creating a vacuum that forces the lungs to expand and draw in oxygen. When air is released back in, the lungs deflate. Tens of thousands of Americans relied on these machines during polio's peak in the 1950s. Lillard's official cause of death was listed as post-polio syndrome and chronic pulmonary failure, though her sister attributes it to the lingering effects of long Covid-19.
Polio itself is a merciless disease. According to the World Health Organization, one in 200 infections results in irreversible paralysis. Among those paralyzed, between 5 and 10 percent die when the virus immobilizes their breathing muscles. When Lillard woke up as a five-year-old unable to lift her head from her pillow, she already knew what had happened to her. She had heard enough about polio to recognize the symptoms immediately. After hospitalization, she underwent physical therapy, occupational therapy, and water therapy, eventually regaining partial use of her left arm and full use of her legs.
The United States eliminated polio in 1979, a triumph achieved through a nationwide vaccination campaign. The polio vaccine, available since 1955, had transformed the disease from a routine killer and paralyzer of children into a relic of the past. That achievement now faces an unexpected threat. Vaccine hesitancy in the United States is growing, and officials within the Trump administration are moving to make more vaccines optional. Kirk Milhoan, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suggested earlier this year that polio vaccines should become optional, arguing that modern sanitation and different risk profiles mean the calculus has changed since the 1950s. "Our sanitation is different, our risk of disease is different," he said.
McVey's response to such rhetoric is anguished and direct. "Polio is terrible," she said, tears in her eyes. "The disease disfigures, disables and leaves people trapped. We had it under control here and now we have all these people who aren't vaccinating their children." She worries that the memory of polio has faded far enough that a new generation of parents, skeptical of vaccines or swayed by misinformation, will make choices that resurrect a disease her sister spent her entire life fighting. "They may think there's problems with the vaccine, but there's a whole lot more problems if they don't vaccinate," she said. Martha Lillard's 73 years in an iron lung stand as a monument to what polio does. Her sister's warning, delivered in the shadow of her death, is a plea to remember.
Notable Quotes
She was resilient, she would find a way, or make do.— Cindy McVey, Martha Lillard's sister
Polio is terrible. The disease disfigures, disables and leaves people trapped. We had it under control here and now we have all these people who aren't vaccinating their children.— Cindy McVey
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Your sister lived longer with polio than most people live with anything. What did she teach you about resilience?
That it wasn't about accepting the machine. It was about refusing to let the machine define her. She found ways around it—literally. Our uncle and grandfather built her a way out of it. She drove. She painted. She loved someone for twenty years. That's not resilience in the sense of suffering quietly. That's defiance.
When she woke up that morning at five years old, did she understand what was happening to her?
She knew immediately. She'd heard so much about polio that even a child understood the danger. But understanding it and being defeated by it are different things. She chose not to be defeated.
Why does vaccine hesitancy frighten you more now than it might have five years ago?
Because people have forgotten. Polio isn't abstract to me—I watched my sister live inside a machine. But to someone born after 1979, it's just a word in a history book. When officials start saying vaccines should be optional, they're betting that forgetting is safe. It isn't.
Do you think your sister's death changes how people will listen to you?
I hope it does. But I'm not sure it will. People see the iron lung as something from another era. They don't see that the disease itself hasn't changed. It still paralyzes. It still kills. My sister proved you can live with it, but that doesn't mean you should have to.
What would Martha say to parents hesitating about the vaccine?
She'd probably ask them questions, the way she asked her Alexa device questions about everything. She was curious, intellectual. She'd want them to think clearly about what they're risking. Not for themselves, but for their children.