Martha Ann Lillard[1] (born June 8, 1948) is an American polio survivor who lives in an iron lung.
[4] Lillard celebrated her fifth birthday on June 8, 1953, with a party at Joyland, an amusement park in Oklahoma.
[5] Later, she spent six months in the hospital, placed in a negative pressure ventilator informally called the iron lung, to help her breathe.
[7] After the death of Paul Alexander on March 11, 2024, Lillard became the last known person to still live in an iron lung.
[2] She was homeschooled for most of her childhood and unable to participate in most extracurricular activities, although she still remembers wanting to go camping with her siblings.