July 11, 2026
Iron Lung, Last Word
Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in Oklahoma
Her final chapter sparked grief, vaccine fear, and a flood of "don’t forget polio" comments
TLDR: Martha Lillard, the last known U.S. polio patient using an iron lung, died at 78 after surviving decades with extraordinary determination. Commenters turned her story into a fierce reminder that vaccines helped stop polio — and that fear, grief, and frustration are rising as people worry those lessons are being forgotten.
The news itself is deeply moving: Martha Lillard, believed to be the last U.S. polio survivor still relying on an iron lung, has died at 78 in Oklahoma after a life that commenters are calling nothing short of astonishing. Diagnosed at 5, told she might not live past 20, she instead built a life full of art, rescue work, road trips, internet friendships, and even a late-in-life love story that ended in marriage just months before her death. But online, the reaction quickly turned from tribute to full-on public health panic mixed with admiration.
The strongest mood in the comments? Respect, then rage. One person called her optimism “powerfully inspirational,” then swerved straight into anxiety about fading disability support and vaccine hesitancy. Another remembered grandparents who feared polio and later died of COVID, turning the thread into a blunt reminder that old diseases don’t stay gone by magic. The hottest take came with heavy sarcasm — “Perhaps we’ll be great again soon” — linking to warnings about polio’s possible return if vaccination drops. That opened the door to the thread’s mini-drama: some people framing the danger as outsiders bringing disease, while others pushed back hard, saying the real issue is simple: if enough people stop getting vaccinated, diseases can roar back, period.
There wasn’t much joking, but there was gallows humor and barstool tenderness: one local said they were “drinking a beer for her.” And maybe that sums up the thread best — part memorial, part warning flare, part comment-section side-eye at a country that forgot how terrifying polio used to be.
Key Points
- •Martha Lillard, described by her family as the last U.S. polio patient using an iron lung, died June 26 in Oklahoma at age 78.
- •Lillard contracted polio at age 5, was paralyzed from the neck down, and relied on an iron lung for decades, spending nearly 24 hours a day in it during her final two years.
- •Her sister, Cindy McVey, said long-haul COVID-19 contributed to her death, while the death certificate listed chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome.
- •The article notes that polio vaccines became available starting in 1955, U.S. cases dropped sharply in the following decades, and polio was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 1979.
- •Despite severe disability, Lillard pursued education, lived alone for many years, wrote poetry and songs, volunteered in animal rescue, and married Baha Salh after a long online relationship.