Martha Lillard, the last polio patient in the US who uses an iron lung, dies at 78 in Oklahoma after chronic pulmonary failure is worsened by long-haul coronavirus effects.Diagnosed with polio at age 5, Lillard relies on a negative-pressure mechanical respirator as paralysis reduces breathing; her lung capacity falls below 25 percent and she spends nearly 24 hours daily in the device in her final two years.Her death leaves no one in the US dependent on an
iron lung and underscores how vaccines introduced in the 1950s ended widespread polio even as aging survivors remain vulnerable to respiratory illness.