Seventy-seven-year-old Paul Alexander, also known as "Polio Paul," has lived inside a 600-pound iron lung for 70 years. It's reported that he refused to upgrade to a more modern machine, and has been perfectly fine in the iron lung.
Paul was 6 years old when he contracted polio in 1952, which was when the worst polio outbreak in US history took place. There were almost 58,000 cases, with most of them reported to be children. In March 2023, Paul was declared the longest iron lung patient by Guinness World Records.
Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is transmitted through contaminated water and food or contact with an infected person, notes Mayo Clinic. Though many who are infected don't become sick and have no symptoms, those who do get sick often develop paralysis, which can sometimes be fatal.
A life-saving vaccine was approved in 1955 and was administered to children all across the US. Then in 1979, the US was declared polio-free.
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Unfortunately, the vaccine came too late for Paul — he was already paralyzed from the neck down.
He then underwent an emergency tracheotomy and was placed in an iron lung to help his body combat the virus. Since then, Paul had relied on the lung for his life.
His machine was made in 1928 and the model he is in hasn't been manufactured since the late '60s. The iron lung is an airtight capsule that covers everything except for the head. It sucks oxygen through negative pressure, which forces the lungs to expand and allow the patient to breathe.
In 2020, Paul told The Guardian in an interview that by the time newer machines were developed, he'd already become used to his iron lung. He also didn't want to get another hole in his throat, which is required for the newer machines.
Paul has learned how to briefly breathe outside of the machine. The technique, "frog breathing," requires the throat muscles to force air past one's vocal cords, which allows the patient to swallow oxygen one mouthful at a time by pushing it down the throat and into the lungs.
All while in the iron lung, Paul has completed high school, graduated college, earned a law degree, practiced law for several decades, and wrote a memoir. In a 2021 interview he stated, “I never gave up, and I’m [still] not going to."
