Martha Lillard, last US polio patient using iron lung, dies at 78 in
Oklahoma
[July 11, 2026]
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Martha Lillard had just turned 5 when she was diagnosed with polio and
depended on an iron lung to live. She died June 26 in Oklahoma, the last
U.S. polio patient who used the machine, her sister said. She was 78.
“They told her she wasn't supposed to live past 20 years old,” Lillard's
younger sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday. “She
had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of
her life.”
McVey attributes her sister's death to the effects of long-haul
COVID-19. A death certificate lists causes as chronic pulmonary failure
and post-polio syndrome, McVey said.
Lillard slept in the iron lung cylinder that encased her body as the air
pressure in the chamber forced air in and out of her lungs. As a child,
she went to grade school for two hours a day and was tutored the rest of
the time. She attended Shawnee High School by using a phone system that
allowed her to interact with her teachers and classmates through an
intercom in her classrooms.
Her family went on road trips to Missouri thanks to a custom trailer and
her father calling hotels to find out if they had doors wide enough to
accommodate the machine Lillard slept in. Lillard was even able to drive
for a time.
“To me, it was just normal,” recalled McVey, 75.
Polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual
outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis. The disease primarily
affects children.
Vaccines became available starting in 1955. According to the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a national vaccination
campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to fewer than 100 in the
1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s. In 1979, polio was declared
eliminated in the U.S., meaning it was no longer routinely spread.
Later the internet would help Lillard stay informed and learn about all
sorts of topics, including her disease, which paralyzed her from the
neck down.
With therapy she was able to regain partial use of her left arm and use
of her legs. But she could only move her left arm side to side at her
waist. Even though she couldn't reach up, she spent many years living
alone and preparing her own meals.
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In this photo provided by Cindy McVey, her sister Martha Lillard
rests in her iron lung on Friday, February 6, 2026 in Shawnee, Okla.
(Cindy McVey via AP)
 The internet also allowed Lillard to
meet her future husband. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, Lillard wanted to understand more about what happened. In a
chat room, she met a man in Egypt and communicated with him online
for more than 20 years, McVey said.
Lillard married Baha Salh in February after he was finally able to
obtain a visa to travel to Oklahoma.
“They were really soul mates,” McVey said. “He's extremely
brokenhearted.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, Lillard got COVID-19 twice. Before
getting COVID-19, she had less than 25% lung capacity. The last five
years of her life, she wasn't able to leave home as it became harder
to breathe. For the past two years, she was in the iron lung nearly
24 hours a day, McVey said.
McVey described her sister as artistic and creative. She wrote poems
and composed songs. She wrote her own obituary, which is now posted
online by a funeral home. She described being a Humane Society
volunteer. “She was an avid Beagle lover and assisted in animal
rescue as a cross poster on Facebook,” Lillard wrote.
She later updated her obituary to say she “died of long-haul Covid
19,” but McVey added the date of her death.
In recent years, McVey and Lillard were desperate to find someone
who could fix the iron lung, one of several she had over her
lifetime.
“But since she's the last one, we don't need that anymore,” McVey
said through tears.
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