Real-life Iron man

Paul Alexander

A Texan man dubbed "Polio Paul" aka Paul Alexander, 75, is one of the last people in the world who still has an iron lung. The ventilators, which were invented in the 1920s, lined hospital wards amid polio outbreaks that plagued the US until the second half of the last century.

In 1959, 1,200 Americans relied on an iron lung to stay alive, but the machines gradually became less common after widespread distribution of the polio vaccine. In 1979, the US was declared polio-free, and by 2014, there were only 10 Americans left using an iron lung. Now, according to the Guardian, Alexander is one of just two US residents who remain reliant on an iron lung. Alexander contracted polio in 1952 when he was six years old. "I lost everything: the ability to move, my legs would not hold me up and then I couldn't breathe," he recalls in a video shared by Reuters. As a youngster, he became paralysed from the waist down and was rushed to hospital and placed in an iron lung.

Alexander contracted polio in 1952 when he was six years old. Now that he is older, Alexander is confined to the contraption on a 24/7 basis and requires round-the-clock care at a facility in Dallas. Pics/AP

The iron lung is an airtight capsule that sucks oxygen through negative pressure, allowing the lungs to expand and the patient to breathe, Medscape reports. Given Alexander's paralysis, and his reliance on the bulky machine, doctors diminished their expectations for his future - but "Polio Paul" was not about to surrender. "I never gave up, and I'm [still] not going to," Alexander defiantly declares in the new video.

Alexander, who claims he "hated just watching TV" all day, started studying and went on to graduate from high school with honours. His dreams of becoming a lawyer suffered a setback when he was initially denied entry to college because of his disability. However, after two years of constant persistence, he was admitted to Southern Methodist University on a scholarship. Alexander graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Texas at Austin Law School in 1984.

1,200
No. of Americans who relied on an iron lung to stay alive in 1959

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