Paul Alexander, an American paralytic polio survivor, lawyer, and writer, passed away on March 11, 2024, at the age of 78. He contracted polio in 1952 at the age of six and was the last man to live in an iron lung, where he spent 72 years of his life. Although not a Rotarian, he was an ambassador for polio eradication for Rotary.
During a major U.S. outbreak of polio in the early 1950s, hundreds of children around Dallas, Texas including Alexander, were taken to Parkland Hosital. There, children were treated in a ward of iron lungs. He almost died in the hospital before a doctor noticed he was not breathing and rushed him into an iron lung.
He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for gradually increasing periods of time.
Alexander was one of the Dallas School District’s first home schooled students. He learned to memorize instead of taking notes. At the age of twenty-one, he graduated second in his class from W. Samuell High School in 1967, becoming the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without physically attending a class.
Alexander received a scholarship to Southern Methodist University. He transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1978, then a Juris Doctor in 1984. Before he was admitted to the bar in 1986, he was employed as an instructor of legal terminology to court stenographers at an Austin trade school. He represented clients in court in a three-piece suit and a modified wheelchair that held his body upright.
Alexander self-published his memoir, Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung, in April 2020 with the assistance of friend and former nurse Norman D. Brown. Alexander spent more than eight years writing the book, using a plastic stick and a pen to tap out on a keyboard or by dictating the words to his friend. Alexander has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the person who has spent the longest amount of time living in an iron lung.
Alexander started a Tik Tok account in January 2024, on which he posted videos discussing his life. He had more than 330,000 followers at the time of his death.
Alexander died in Dallas on March 11, 2024, at age 78. Although he had been hospitalized for COVID-19 in February, the actual cause of death was unclear. He was one of the last two people still using the technology, alongside Martha Lillard, who first entered an iron lung in 1953.
