Polio Paul, the man who has lived on an iron lung for 70 years and hasn’t given up

“I lost everything: the ability to move, my legs wouldn’t support me, and then I couldn’t breathe,” she recalls. Paul-Alexanderthe American that many call “Polio Paolo”. The Texan is one of the last people in the world still addicted to an iron lung. your life is one history of struggles and resistances as rarely seen.

Alexander, 77, is confined. His life is sustained by being “bound” to a huge machine that has been oxygenating him since he contracted polio, one of the most notorious deadly diseases of the last century. His contagion dates back to seven decades ago.

That huge fan known as an “iron lung” was invented in the 1920s in the United States, when hospital wards were filled with patients falling ill in the midst of the heat. worst epidemic to hit the country and continued until the middle of the last century.

In 1959, an estimated 1,200 Americans relied on an iron lung to survive, but over the years these massive machines have become less common for one main reason: the widespread distribution of the polio vaccine. In 1979, The United States was declared polio-free., and by 2014, there were only 10 Americans left with an iron lung. Today there are just two: another patient, and Alexander, who decided to tell about his life tireless struggle.

“Polio Paul,” he told The Guardian newspaper contracted polio in 1952 when he was six years old and lived with his family in suburban Dallas. At an early age he was paralyzed from the waist down and was rushed to the hospital and placed on the car.

The iron lung is a hermetic capsule that sucks in oxygen through negative pressure, allowing the lungs to expand and the patient to breathe. It is a large, heavy cylindrical tube and requires the wearer to remain buckled during operation.

Currently the iron lung is used very little in the world of modern respiratory therapies. Most patients with respiratory muscle paralysis use mechanical ventilators They push air into the airways with positive pressure.

Before he turned 20, Alexander was so addicted to the device that doctors lowered their expectations for his future. However, he had other plans: “I never gave up, and I won’t do it again,” says Alexander defiantly today, who could already be said to have won the fight.

He never gave up. “Because I just hated watching TV all day, I started studying and graduated with honors,” he says. He then graduated with a Leyer PhD from the University of Texas in 1984. “Something good finally happened, I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer”, he reminded Reuters with a smile.

Alexander has spent decades working as a lawyer and was even able to get himself pulled out of the iron lung at times, but now that he’s older it depends 24/7 of the car. Someone always assists him in a center in Dallas and when he needs help to fix the device he gets help from him Brady Richards, a local mechanic who rebuilt his original iron lung. “My life would have fallen apart if it weren’t for him,” Alexander admits.

“I do like everyone else. I wake up, wash my face, brush my teeth, shave, have a small breakfast; I just need a little more help to do it,” jokes the man who, despite his limitations, took out his own last year first biography, titled “Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung.” He wrote it over five years, writing every word of the book with a pen attached to a stick in his mouth.

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The daily life of Paul Alexander

On the coffee table, his head is surrounded by equipment for connecting to the outside world: a computer, a telephone and a wireless speaker. There is also a glass with a straw to drink liquids and a long T-shaped plastic device that can send emails or answer the phone with its mouth.

But who is the person who helps him? For more than 30 years, Kathryn Guadagni is who assists him. For 15 years they lived together. Later, the woman moved in next door and now lives a block away. “We pretty much get along,” she said. “I haven’t killed him yet,” she says with a laugh.

Today, after a long and interesting life, Alexander hopes that his experience will serve as an a example of perseverance to other people.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from or what your background is, or what challenges you might face, you really can do anything. You just have to put your mind to it and work hard. My story is an example of why your past or even your disability doesn’t have to define your future.”

Although most modern ventilators have been designed with medical progress, the lawyer has decided to continue living with his old iron lung. “I wanted to get the things they told me I couldn’t get”, he said, adding: “And also fulfill the dreams that I dreamed.” All a message.