The Paralyzed Man Who Lived in a Mechanical Ventilator for 70 Years

Paul Alexander in his Iron lungAllison Smith/The Guardian

For the last 70 years, Paul Richard Alexander has lived inside a mechanical ventilator known as an iron lung that helps him breathe. He is one of the children who contracted polio during the major US polio outbreak of the late 1950s. As a result of the infectious disease, Paul was paralyzed for life and could only move his head, neck, and mouth.

Despite spending most of his life in an Iron cylinder that looks like a submarine that acts as a lung for him, Paul is an educated man who became a lawyer despite his paralysis. However, Paul is now one of America’s last polio survivors who used the iron lung to survive.

According to the CDC, Polio is an infectious disease that is disabling and life-threatening. The polio virus causes paralysis by spreading from one person to another and can infect a person’s spinal cords. In the late 1950s, a polio epidemic paralyzed as many as 15000 American children; the disease sentenced them to a life of living in the Iron lungs.

Polio Children Paralysed in Iron LungNational Museum of Health and Medicine

However, despite the paralysis and the confined to life in the Iron lung, Paul became home-schooled. His inability to take notes didn’t deter him as he resorted to memorizing his schoolwork and graduated second in his class in 1967. When asked why he didn’t graduate first in the class, his humor shone through when he said, “The only reason I didn’t get first is because I couldn’t do the biology lab.”

Paul’s passion for education and the desire to accomplish a future for himself eventually took him to the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a law degree and consequently became a lawyer practicing family law. He helped people fight off creditors and also aided people filing for bankruptcy.

In 2020, Paul self-published his memoir, “Three Minutes for a Dog: My life in an Iron Lung.” Unfortunately, it took him more than eight years to write the book as he could only use a plastic stick and a pen to tap on the keyboard when he was not dictating the words to his friend.

Paul inside his iron lung as a childPhotograph: Courtesy of Paul Alexander

While Paul surviving polio meant a prison sentence of sorts, he was nevertheless freer than many non-disabled people, and that is because of his fighting spirit and the passion that he pours into everything he does. Living in his iron lung, he could graduate high school at the top of his class and win a scholarship that saw him achieve a bachelor’s degree and then a Juris doctor. After that, he worked and earned a living by fighting for his clients in courtrooms while still confined to the iron lung.

Paul is now a 76-year-old pensioner, and despite doing very well for himself, he remains humble in his accomplishments. He credits all his achievements to his parents, whom he fondly describes as “extraordinary souls and magical.” As others were trying to hamper his ambition early on in his youth, his parents kindled the fire in him. Remembering his Parents, Paul said, “They just loved me. They said, ‘You can do anything.’ And I believed it.”

Paul’s inspiring story is a journey of how one man, with the help of his parent’s love and his passion, paved a path for himself that put his name on the pages of history. His story is a testament to what loving parents, a dutiful son, and the resilient will of man can achieve when they all come together. Though Paul’s parents have passed away, their memory is warmly alive in their son. In a nutshell, Paul is the epitome of the endurance of the human spirit and the great lengths it can go when applied correctly.