The Man in the Iron Lung, 1952

 The Man in the Iron Lung, 1952

Paul Alexander was just 6 years old when he contracted Polio. Polio is a virus, which can spread to the spine, leading to paralysis. It was a massive issue in the Western world in the 1950s as there was a large outbreak. In a week, he was paralysed from the neck down. Paul was taken to hospital and awoke in an iron lung. The iron lung is a respirator which uses positive and negative pressures to make people breathe. This is needed as the diaphragm, which is the muscle around the lungs which is needed to pull and push air out of them, no longer functions.

Paul did not let this stand in his way. He studied and became a lawyer. He also wrote a book about his life and travelled far and wide to talk about his life. Paul also learned to breathe on his own and could leave the respirator for a few hours at a time, but how he accomplished this is not detailed. He also learned how to write neatly using a pen in his mouth. As of 2024, Paul is the only human using an iron lung in the world, as a Polio vaccine has since been developed and is usually given to young babies. The vaccine was so effective that Polio was accounted to have been eradicated in the western region of the world in 1991, and cases worldwide reduced from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 33 in 2018.

Paul sadly passed away on March 11th 2024 from COVID-19. He lived to be 76 years old, an astonishing age given his condition. He was looked after by carers, and a GoFundMe page, which covered his financial needs in his later life.