What It's Like to Be In an Iron Lung
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Date: 2022-12-29
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Comments and reviews: 20
Diane
My late husband contracted polio when he was 13 years old. The paralysis began with his feet and moved up his legs and into his torso. They had an iron lung beside his bed as the paralysis moved closer to his chest. Fortunately it stopped at his stomach. This was before the Salk vaccine.
The stories he told me were awful. He was in a ward and watched children who had died being rolled past his bed. Its a long story but he recovered somewhat. He had terrible cramps in his calf muscles and back for the rest of his life. Also his bowels were very sluggish, causing constipation where he didnt move them for a week. We had a kind of code between us about getting him relief. Id ask him if he would like some prunes-I always kept a box of dried prunes in the pantry. Id soak a half dozen or so in water and leave them on the counter. He also has three toes on each foot that never recovered.
After a 20+ year career in the USAF, he lived until 2016 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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My late husband contracted polio when he was 13 years old. The paralysis began with his feet and moved up his legs and into his torso. They had an iron lung beside his bed as the paralysis moved closer to his chest. Fortunately it stopped at his stomach. This was before the Salk vaccine.
The stories he told me were awful. He was in a ward and watched children who had died being rolled past his bed. Its a long story but he recovered somewhat. He had terrible cramps in his calf muscles and back for the rest of his life. Also his bowels were very sluggish, causing constipation where he didnt move them for a week. We had a kind of code between us about getting him relief. Id ask him if he would like some prunes-I always kept a box of dried prunes in the pantry. Id soak a half dozen or so in water and leave them on the counter. He also has three toes on each foot that never recovered.
After a 20+ year career in the USAF, he lived until 2016 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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Bill
My father was a country doctor and he had a young patient in the early 1950's who was in a St. Louis hospital suffering from polio and in an iron lung. He took me with him to visit the boy. I could not go in the room where they had two rows of iron lungs with about 8 or 10 young patients in them. But they let me peek through a small window to see them. It was horrific to a kid of six and at 72 I can still see those kids in my mind.
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My father was a country doctor and he had a young patient in the early 1950's who was in a St. Louis hospital suffering from polio and in an iron lung. He took me with him to visit the boy. I could not go in the room where they had two rows of iron lungs with about 8 or 10 young patients in them. But they let me peek through a small window to see them. It was horrific to a kid of six and at 72 I can still see those kids in my mind.
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Unpopular_Truth
Fake vaccine propaganda. Iron lungs like this are no longer used and are only found in museums. Modern ventilators are much smaller and portable so why on earth would anyone use an Iron Lung from the 1950s? This purpose of this story scare people into getting vaccinated. Also Polio was caused by widespread of toxic pesticidest such DTT and isn't a virus.
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Fake vaccine propaganda. Iron lungs like this are no longer used and are only found in museums. Modern ventilators are much smaller and portable so why on earth would anyone use an Iron Lung from the 1950s? This purpose of this story scare people into getting vaccinated. Also Polio was caused by widespread of toxic pesticidest such DTT and isn't a virus.
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Steel
The attorney you mentioned actually had to reach out with a plea to anyone who could help when he couldn't get any replacement parts for his iron lung, and a custom fabrication shop ended up reinventing the iron lung off of old pictures because the original schematics were either lost or stored somewhere no one could access effectively making the device Lostech.
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The attorney you mentioned actually had to reach out with a plea to anyone who could help when he couldn't get any replacement parts for his iron lung, and a custom fabrication shop ended up reinventing the iron lung off of old pictures because the original schematics were either lost or stored somewhere no one could access effectively making the device Lostech.
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FauZhee
This looks restrictive, claustrophobic or even scary. But I will choose this over ventilator after I've seen the tutorial of how the later is done to us. I don't think I can stand having a hose inside my throat.
Still, hopefully I will never have to experience any of this.
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This looks restrictive, claustrophobic or even scary. But I will choose this over ventilator after I've seen the tutorial of how the later is done to us. I don't think I can stand having a hose inside my throat.
Still, hopefully I will never have to experience any of this.
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5809AUJG
When it was time to get immunizations when I was a kid, I told my mother I didn't want them, that they'd hurt. My mom replied that I could then get ready to spend my life in an iron lung. I decided at that moment that I couldn't get my immunizations fast enough.
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When it was time to get immunizations when I was a kid, I told my mother I didn't want them, that they'd hurt. My mom replied that I could then get ready to spend my life in an iron lung. I decided at that moment that I couldn't get my immunizations fast enough.
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Diane
I remember in the early sixties seeing a boy in an iron lung, at a school play, in the audience. I was amazed that his family was able to get the iron lung into the auditorium, but I also very happy he would be able to see his sibling in the play.
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I remember in the early sixties seeing a boy in an iron lung, at a school play, in the audience. I was amazed that his family was able to get the iron lung into the auditorium, but I also very happy he would be able to see his sibling in the play.
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Sara
My Granny had polio in the 1940s and spent months in the hospital. She luckily only needed PT and was able to walk again, albeit with a limp the rest of her life. She told me how lucky she felt that she didn't need to be in the metal lung.
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My Granny had polio in the 1940s and spent months in the hospital. She luckily only needed PT and was able to walk again, albeit with a limp the rest of her life. She told me how lucky she felt that she didn't need to be in the metal lung.
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Buckacre
My grandfather was a Shriner. He took me to see the Shriners Hospital in St. Louis a long, long time ago. An iron lung was on display in a room, and it was big and breathing. I still get scared thinking about that
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My grandfather was a Shriner. He took me to see the Shriners Hospital in St. Louis a long, long time ago. An iron lung was on display in a room, and it was big and breathing. I still get scared thinking about that
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Andrea
I rmbr bring a kid & afraid of polio. Seeing other kids w braces on their legs. My ex mother-in law. Spent a yr in a polio hodp as a child quarantined from her fam. That iron lung sounds like a terrible sentence
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I rmbr bring a kid & afraid of polio. Seeing other kids w braces on their legs. My ex mother-in law. Spent a yr in a polio hodp as a child quarantined from her fam. That iron lung sounds like a terrible sentence
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Jan
Dr. Jonas Salk never patented his vaccine, so he got no financial gain from it. Because of him polio is mostly a distant memory. His vaccine did this, cases of polio in most of the world's polio cases dropped.
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Dr. Jonas Salk never patented his vaccine, so he got no financial gain from it. Because of him polio is mostly a distant memory. His vaccine did this, cases of polio in most of the world's polio cases dropped.
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Laurie
Oh yeah I know I've been a critical care nurse since I was 19. if that happened to me I would just prefer to go straight to heaven cuz that's where I'm going I know for sure. Philadelphia USA
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Oh yeah I know I've been a critical care nurse since I was 19. if that happened to me I would just prefer to go straight to heaven cuz that's where I'm going I know for sure. Philadelphia USA
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Jacquelyne
As a retired nurse I actually got to work at a place where they had one, my aunt had a slight case of polio her one leg was much smaller than the other, so she always wore long pants
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As a retired nurse I actually got to work at a place where they had one, my aunt had a slight case of polio her one leg was much smaller than the other, so she always wore long pants
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I'm
I think it's great if they worked for people back then, but personally its not an existence I would want. Those things are just so twisted, archaic, and uncomfortable looking.
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I think it's great if they worked for people back then, but personally its not an existence I would want. Those things are just so twisted, archaic, and uncomfortable looking.
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Danielle
Thank goodness Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, which saved thousand's of live's. Unfortunately I don't
think he was rewarded for his discovery,
shame.
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Thank goodness Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine, which saved thousand's of live's. Unfortunately I don't
think he was rewarded for his discovery,
shame.
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Melanie
I can't imagine what a polio survivor must feel while people are actively protesting a vaccine that would save so many from permanent breathing issues and/or death.
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I can't imagine what a polio survivor must feel while people are actively protesting a vaccine that would save so many from permanent breathing issues and/or death.
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Randy
Can we just talk about the guy in the Iron lung smoking a Cigarette that the Nurse is holding to his mouth? I mean what is wrong with this picture lol.
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Can we just talk about the guy in the Iron lung smoking a Cigarette that the Nurse is holding to his mouth? I mean what is wrong with this picture lol.
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Lael
The cutesy, smug narration was very alienating and disrespectful to those who suffered in an iron lung. I won't watch any more from this site.
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The cutesy, smug narration was very alienating and disrespectful to those who suffered in an iron lung. I won't watch any more from this site.
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Metal
To be honest, tech like this is supposed to disappear with time. If we still had people who had to live in these things, wed have a problem
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To be honest, tech like this is supposed to disappear with time. If we still had people who had to live in these things, wed have a problem
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McGannahan
I visit Mr. Frump in the hospital. I see him most every day
and when I see Mr. Frump in the iron lung, this is what I hear him say.
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I visit Mr. Frump in the hospital. I see him most every day
and when I see Mr. Frump in the iron lung, this is what I hear him say.
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