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<\/p>\nPaul Alexander lived a life unlike many others. For the majority of his life, he\u2019s was inside an iron lung, and he was one of the last people in the world still using the respirator which dates back to the 1928.Despite his unusual circumstances, he\u2019s lived an incredibly full life and he\u2019s never accepted anything less.\u201cI am not going to accept from anybody their limitations on my life. Not gonna do it. My life is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Paul was just six years old he ran into his family\u2019s home in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and told his mother he wasn\u2019t feeling well. Since his birth in 1946, Paul had been a normal, vibrant, and active child \u2013\u00a0but now something was clearly wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my God, not my son,\u201d Paul recalled his mother saying.Following doctor\u2019s orders, he spent the next several days in bed recovering, but the boy clearly had polio, and he was not getting better. Less than a week after he started feeling sick he couldn\u2019t hold anything nor could he swallow or breathe.His parents finally rushed to the hospital where he joined countless other children experiencing similar symptoms.Before vaccines were available for polio, more than\u00a015,000 people were paralyzed\u00a0from the virus. Polio, an incredibly contagious\u00a0infection, can spread even when an infected person has no symptoms.\u00a0The symptoms of polio include fatigue, fever, stiffness, muscle pain, and vomiting. In rarer cases, polio can also cause paralysis and death.<\/p>\n
Paul was examined by a doctor and pronounced dead, but then another doctor took a look at him and gave him another chance at life.The second doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy, and following the surgery, Paul was placed inside an iron lung.When he eventually woke up, three days later, he was among several rows of children also encased in iron lungs.\u201dI didn\u2019t know what had happened. I had all kinds of imaginings, like I\u2019d died. I kept asking myself: Is this what death is? Is this a coffin? Or have I gone to some undesirable place?\u201d the Texas native told As It Happens host Carol Off in 2017.<\/p>\n
Paul, who also had a tracheotomy, couldn\u2019t speak, making the whole event even more terrifying.\u201cI tried to move, but I couldn\u2019t move. Not even a finger. I tried to touch something to figure it out, but I never could. So it was pretty strange.\u201dThe machine, invented in the late 1920s, was the first to ventilate a human being. It was often referred to in the early days as the \u201cDrinker respirator\u201d the device is hermetically sealed from the neck down and creates a negative pressure in the chamber that draws air into the patient\u2019s lungs. If it generates overpressure, the air is forced out of the lungs again, and the patient exhales.Getty ImagesPaul spent 18 months inside the metal canister recovering from the initial infection. And he wasn\u2019t alone. The year Paul was infected by the virus, 1952, was a very dark year looking at the statistics.Almost 58,000 people, primarily children, contracted the virus in the U.S in 1952. Sadly, 3,145 of them died.\u201cAs far as you can see, rows and rows of iron lungs. Full of children,\u201d he said, according to\u00a0The Guardian.While some may have given up their will to live, it only fueled Paul\u2019s will.He would hear doctors say, \u201dHe\u2019s going to die today\u201d or \u201cHe shouldn\u2019t be alive\u201d whenever they passed by him, and he wanted to prove them wrong.\u201cIron Lung\u201d victims at Baltimore\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital have a television set now, thanks to the generosity of the Baltimore Rotary Club. This is probably the first set used to relieve the tedium of polio victims. Mirrors on the lungs permit the patients to see daily broadcasts.And that\u2019s exactly what he did!In 1954 he was discharged from the hospital, but he quickly learned his life was drastically different than before.\u201cPeople didn\u2019t like me very much back then,\u201d he said during a\u00a0video interview\u00a0in 2021. \u201cI felt like they were uncomfortable around me.\u201dBut with the help of a therapist named Mrs. Sullivan, who visited him twice a week, little by little his life began to improve. His therapist made a deal with him that if he could \u201cfrog-breathe,\u201d a technique where you trap air in your mouth by flattening your tongue and opening your throat, without the iron lung for three minutes she\u2019d get him a puppy.Getty ImagesIt was hard work, but within a year Paul was able to spend more and more time outside of the iron lung.When he was 21 he became the first person to graduate a Dallas high school \u2013 with honors! \u2013 without ever physically attending class. He then set his sights on college, and after several rejections, he was accepted to Southern Methodist University.\u201cThey said I was too crippled and did not have the vaccination,\u201d he recalled. \u201cTwo years of tormenting them, they accepted me on two conditions. One, that I take the polio vaccine, and two that a fraternity would be responsible for me.\u201dHe went on to graduate from Southern Methodist University and then attended law school at the University of Texas at Austin. He passed the bar and became a lawyer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.\u201cAnd I was a pretty damn good one too!\u201d<\/p>\n
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Even after a 30-year long career in the courtroom, he continued to keep busy by writing a book, which he typed all by himself using a pen attached to a stick.According to a Gizmodo, Paul is believed to be one of the last people who lived in the near-obsolete machine. He was confined to his old iron lung around the clock and spent much of his life in a can.\u201dI have travelled with it \u2014\u00a0 put it in a truck, took it with me. I\u2019ve gone to college with it, lived in a dorm. That freaked everybody out,\u201d he said.Paul\u2019s type of iron lung hasn\u2019t been manufactured for half a century because \u2013 ventilators are now much more advanced and sophisticated.But the polio survivor preferred his metal chamber, even though new technology was available for him.But the Dallas attorney had to make a desperate YouTube announcement when the metal lung almost broke down seven years ago. Fortunately, there were still abandoned machines all over the country, so many spare parts are still out there. Paul has also had help from enthusiasts who love approaching old technology.\u201dA lot of people who had polio and they\u2019re dead. What did they do with the iron lung? I\u2019ve found them in barns. I found them in garages. I\u2019ve found them in junk shops. Not much, but enough to scrounge [for] parts,\u201d he says.Paul once said he\u2019s been able to live such a fulfilling life because he \u201cnever gave up.\u201d\u201cI wanted to accomplish the things I was told I couldn\u2019t accomplish,\u201d he said, \u201cand to achieve the dreams I dreamed.\u201dPolio has effectively been wiped out of the United States since 1979. However, vaccine-derived cases of polio crop up every now and then which are still a cause for concern.Paul Alexander cause of deathPaul Alexander, famously known as \u201cThe Man in the Iron Lung,\u201d sadly passed away in March 2024. Despite living most of his life inside the metal machine that helped him breathe, those closest to him remember him not for his condition\u2014but for his warmth and vibrant spirit.His brother, Philip Alexander, shared heartfelt memories of their bond, describing Paul as a \u201cwelcoming, warm person\u201d whose \u201cbig smile\u201d could immediately make anyone feel at home.\u201cTo me, he was just a normal brother,\u201d Philip told the BBC. \u201cWe fought, we played, we loved, we partied, we went to concerts together \u2013 he was just a normal brother, I never thought about it.\u201dPhilip also spoke of Paul\u2019s strength and independence, even in the face of overwhelming physical limitations. \u201cHe was the master of his domain, helping people to help him,\u201d he said, admiring how Paul managed to maintain control over his life despite needing assistance with basic tasks like eating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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