60 Years in an Iron Lung
Martha Mason of Lattimore, North Carolina was a victim of polio that left her paralyzed from the neck down when she was a child. She breathed with the help of an iron lung which encased her body, leaving only her head free. Ms. Mason died last week at age 71, having spent over 60 years living inside the apparatus. There are no documented cases of anyone living as long in an iron lung.
From her horizontal world — a 7-foot-long, 800-pound iron cylinder that encased all but her head — Ms. Mason lived a life that was by her own account fine and full, reading voraciously, graduating with highest honors from high school and college, entertaining and eventually writing.
She chose to remain in an iron lung, she often said, for the freedom it gave her. It let her breathe without tubes in her throat, incisions or hospital stays, as newer, smaller ventilators might require. It took no professional training to operate, letting her remain mistress of her own house, with just two aides assisting her.
“I’m happy with who I am, where I am,” Ms. Mason told The Charlotte Observer in 2003. “I wouldn’t have chosen this life, certainly. But given this life, I’ve probably had the best situation anyone could ask for.”
Ms. Mason wrote a book about her life entitled Breathe and starred in the documentary Martha in Lattimore. Link -via Fark
(image credit: Wake Forest University)
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