Wednesday, 27 May 2020

The man in the iron lung

quote [ The long read: When he was six, Paul Alexander contracted polio and was paralysed for life. Today he is 74, and one of the last people in the world still using an iron lung. But after surviving one deadly outbreak, he did not expect to find himself threatened by another ]

My iron lung
[SFW] [people] [+2 Interesting]
[by ScoobySnacks@1:09pmGMT]

Comments

5th Earth said @ 4:02pm GMT on 27th May
Read a related article a while ago about how it's getting extremely hard to find parts and maintenance for the few remaining iron lung users. Like, zero manufacturer support, and only dwindling supplies of long expired consumable parts such as neck seals. Which is pretty scary since these are life sustaining devices.
Space_1889 said[1] @ 5:50pm GMT on 27th May
If you search for "Paul Alexander iron lung" on YouTube there are several interesting videos about him - I like the Gizmodo one the best.

I had heard about him some time ago, due to my being a Rotarian, but this article taught me some things I had not known about him before. His story has motivated me to make significant donations to Rotary's campaign to eradicate polio.
Igor said @ 8:43pm GMT on 8th Jun
When I was a kid, just starting school, we always had to read these stories about some plucky fun-loving kid who got sick and found himself in an iron lung. It wasn't 'til years later I realized we were reading that to set up social expectations if we got infected.

Then one Saturday my parents woke us up and we went and stood in line at the high school. Then some nurse handed me a sugar cube with a red dye in it.

Then we didn't have those stories come up any more.
mechanical contrivance said @ 1:41pm GMT on 9th Jun
Yay science!

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