Paul Alexander, the man who survived 7 decades in an
iron lung,
has died.
To be there.
It's.
It's my friend and it's.
By enemy.
In the end, he keeps me alive.
A 1952 polio outbreak in Dallas,
TX, struck Alexander, who was only six years old at
the time.
The disease left him paralyzed from the neck down and
unable to breathe on his own.
The solution to keep him and others affected by the
disease alive was the iron lung,
its thrilling advance in war against needless loss of life.
The iron lung encased a person's body in a metal
tube,
forcing air in and out.
It did the job a polio patients paralyzed body could
no longer do.
Different kind of life and.
That you're totally restricted.
Many people would go crazy in it.
Can I watch them do it in Osborne?
But you adapt and you learn.
To do what you need to do.
To accomplish your goals and your dreams.
With the help of the artwork,
Alexander went on to become a lawyer and an author.
He even shared moments of his life on TikTok.
A way of life would be in 2024.
There is no cure for polio,
but it can be prevented with vaccination,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In March 2024, the Guinness World Records declared Alexander to
be the longest living iron lung patient in history.
Paul Alexander was 78 years old.