Polio Paul, the dramatic story of the man who lived more than 70 years in an iron lung

Paul Alexander, known as Polio Paul, has died at the age of 78 after contracting Covid-19. The man from Texas, United States, had lived for more than 70 years in an iron lung after contracting polio as a child in 1952.

The man was only six years old when he contracted polio and was paralyzed from the neck down.

This disease has left him with difficulty breathing on his own and that’s why doctors They decided to lock him up in an iron lung where he had been since 1952.

For more than seventy years, this enormous tank kept him alive and at the time represented the only alternative for polio patients.

Poliomyelitis or polio is a deadly disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person and can infect the spinal cord.

Paul Alexander has died at the age of 78 after his health became complicated due to contracting Covid-19 in recent weeks.

Iron lung

The steel tank was intended to replace this man’s lungs, so it incorporated a huge fan that created a vacuum inside it.

In this way, the device generated a flow of oxygen to the patient’s lungs since his nervous and respiratory systems had been destroyed by the polio virus.

The tank is known as a negative pressure ventilator because it artificially creates breathing by putting pressure on the lungs to make them expand and contract.

This ventilator was only used for a few weeks, but some patients like Paul have managed to live with this device for decades.

Scientific advances have allowed these systems to be improved with much more modern and efficient ventilators, such as those used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, Paul Alexander lived for more than 70 years connected to this respirator from neck to toe.