Martha Lillard, last American to use iron lung, dies at 78

Martha Ann Lillard, an Oklahoma resident and the last person in the United States who had to rely on an iron lung, died on June 26. She was 78.

According to her obituary, Lillard, a lifelong resident of Shawnee, died of long-haul COVID-19.

Lillard contracted polio in 1953 on her fifth birthday, two years before Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was officially declared safe and effective, KFOR reported.

“I got it on my fifth birthday. I woke up, and it was sunny outside, and I started to sit up, and my neck was killing me,” Lillard told the television station in an interview three weeks ago. “I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow.”

After four days, Lillard became unconscious.

“I couldn’t breathe,” she told KFOR. “I couldn’t move my arms or legs. I was paralyzed all over.”

The iron lung helped save her life, the television station reported.

“Despite living with only 25% lung capacity, scoliosis, and a paralyzed right arm, Martha Ann spent her life as normally as possible,” a GoFundMe page set up to cover Lillard’s funeral and probate expenses stated.

“They usually didn’t like to put children in because they fought it, but I didn’t,” Lillard told KFOR. “I liked it. It felt good to breathe.”

In a 2017 interview with Gizmodo, Lillard said that waiting for nurses to help her “seemed like forever” because she was gasping for air.

‘You just laid there and you could feel your heart beating and it was just terrifying,“ she said. ”The only noise that you can make when you can’t breathe is clicking your tongue. And that whole dark room just sounded like a big room full of chickens just cluck-cluck-clucking."

Despite the roadblocks, Lillard pressed forward and led a productive life.

She was born June 8, 1948, in Shawnee.

According to her obituary, Lillard attended Jefferson Grade School for an hour daily and also had tutors. She enrolled at Shawnee High School and attended via school-to-home phone. Lillard would become a member of the National Honor Society.

As an adult, she volunteered at the Pottawatomie County Humane Society. Lillard also did volunteer work with a local day care center and was a volunteer coordinator for Shawnee crisis phones, according to her obituary.

She also painted, wrote poems and composed music for the left-handed piano, since her right arm was paralyzed because of polio.

Lillard was able to live outside the iron lung, KFOR reported. When she was healthy, she only needed to use the iron lung for nine hours -- when she slept -- according to the television station.

Lillard lived independently until recently.

“She didn’t really require a caretaker until Covid-19,” Cindy McVey, Lillard’s sister, told KFOR. “She fixed her own meals and took care of everything herself.”

Lillard was confined to the iron lung full time during the last eight months of her life, according to the television station.

©2026 Cox Media Group