What It's Like to Be In an Iron Lung

Developed during the 1920s, the iron lung was invented to help individuals with polio breathe after their torso and abdominal muscles ceased to work. Improvements to the iron lung were made throughout the 20th century, but the almost-obsolete hospital device still looks a lot like a machine used in interrogations or a cruel medical tool.

For many, the iron lung's lifesaving benefits were - and, for a few, still are - worth the trouble of living in a cylindrical breathing machine.

#MedicalHistory #IronLung #WeirdHistory

[scottlong]

My wife spent time in an iron lung as a child. This invention is just one of thousands I am grateful for.

[barbaralong]

I was a nurse in the late seventies and took care of patients who were confined to iron lungs and rocking beds. It was a very profound time that I spent with them and often stood in awe of the determination of these people. Thank you for posting this video.

[CrimsonRaven]

Being claustrophobic, the iron lung is a nightmare. I was born in 1951 in Chicago and the threat of polio to us kids, 5 and 6 year olds was very real and scary. All kinds of old wives tales were out on how to avoid catching it, like avoid the beach. When the vaccine came out it was a series of 3 painful shots. Kids by the hundreds were lined up at a park field house where they were administered. Then booster shots at school, then in sugar cubes. Thankfully none of us contracted the disease. But I’ve had to travel to countries where to this day they suffer polio and leprosy!

[FBIsecurityVAN]

"Shouldn't have been allowed a patent on something that could save human lives"


If only.

[royriley]

Imagine being so desperate to go to hell that you sue in order to prevent the advance of medical technology and force patients to use inferior devices that profit you alone.

[dianeashworth]

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. It’s 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 didn’t move them for a week. We had a kind of code between us about getting him relief. I’d ask him if he would like some prunes-I always kept a box of dried prunes in the pantry. I’d 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.

[Ray-mwfx]

I remember in Spongebob there was this thing called the iron butt.

[seecanon]

In 1956 my sister contracted polio. She was in a lung for several months. When she got out her left leg and arm were weak but therapy helped. She died in 2018. She lived because of this contraption. I got the sugar cube on Monday and they had more Friday. A ambulance took her Sunday morning. 4 days and she got polio.

[helterskelterevery]

My aunt and uncle both had polio and they met while in college. They were two of the sweetest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. Both were wheelchair bound when they met and had been since early childhood when they were first diagnosed with the disease.
That said, my aunt was far worse off than my uncle in terms of her illness. My uncle always had his own “push chair” that he loved doing “tricks” in- like curb hopping or wheelies. His legs never “grew in”, so he liked to lift weights in his early days to keep as much upper body strength as he could in order to take as much care of my aunt as possible. While my uncle was able to be more physically active, I never knew my aunt not to be in an electric wheelchair- not because she wanted to be in one, but because she didn’t have the muscle strength to push herself.
I remember being a young kid and going down to visit them. My aunt had an iron lung that took up an entire room in her house. It sat in the dead center of the room and nothing else was in there. To me, it truly looked like a coffin, sometimes even a submarine. I never saw how it worked as a “lung” though. I mean, there were no tubes, no wires, I didn’t see oxygen anywhere. For me, at that age, it was a really odd looking machine (and it still is).
I was never around for her bedtime (which was super early- like around 5-6 pm bc that’s when the nurses would leave for the day), so I would have to use my imagination to fill in the blanks about how the machine actually worked. Adults kind of suck at describing things to young kids, so it sounded like they were putting her into an oven every night. I was told that a long rack came out, they would lay her on it then slide her into this machine and leave her head out (just as this video describes). Okay, to a six year old, how does that NOT sound like an oven?? I think they even used the word “cook” at some point (as in “it cooks me up till morning”- what an evil thing to say to a 5 year old btw!).
She was lucky enough to only have to sleep in it, but it really did look awful. The “bed” was metal and she had no blankets at night. She did have a very flat looking pillow, and mirrors like the video shows, but I remember thinking that I would have died from the boredom alone. Not only that, but the “bed” section was incredibly narrow looking (as in, even for an “average” sized human, it looked like your body would spill over the sides). She probably spent half of her life sleeping in that torture chamber before they finally created a device that pumped air directly into her lungs via a tube in her neck. Sadly, she passed away as a result of that tube. It came out in the middle of the night. It did that on occasion and alarms would sound. This particular night her husband couldn’t get to her in time bc he fell out of his wheelchair trying to get out of bed.
In over 50 years of marriage, they never once spent a single night in the same bed. In fact, I’m pretty sure they couldn’t even consummate their marriage. He died shortly thereafter.
If you believe in things like “true love”, “dying from a broken heart”, and one person not being able to live without the other, it would certainly be their story.
I vaguely remember leaving their house as a child feeling grateful that I was healthy, but I wish my parents had used that time as a teaching tool to go over that type of gratitude. Health truly is the most precious gift we have on the planet and that’s such an easy thing to take for granted- till you no longer have it.
Anyways, this video was really well done, and very spot on to my own familial experiences.

[laurice]

I’ve been a Respiratory Therapist for over 25 years, and of course I learned about the iron lung and how it works. But this is the first time I’ve ever heard about it from the patient’s perspective and what their lives were like while using the iron lung. Great video! Thanks for sharing!

[issuesexplained]

I was honestly kinda terrified of the thought of being in on of these things as a kid. I guess we’ll see if I was right.

[lincolnehret]

in 50 years: “What it was like to be in quarantine during the coronavirus outbreak”

[dp]

Polio: *gets eradicated*
Anti-vaxxers: I'm about to restart this man's whole career

[pizzahuthonoka]

AntiVax: *Sees iron lung, looks at daughter.*

_”A small price to pay for autism salvation.”_

[daspriggsy]

That Paul guy has been in there for years and he doesn’t even get a pillow he gets a towel

[thatrat]

It’s weird how In school I would not pay attention when my teacher played these vids and now I can’t stop watching

[cfrygirl]

This needs to be shown to anti vac people

[Pilot-X]

I’d rather die than be kept alive for life by that but I can understand a parent not being able to let go of their young child to death so easily. Very sad disease.

[floopygoober]

this gonna be everyone who smokes fake carts in 30 years

[samuelvozar]

In eastern eurep we didn't have iron lungs, we simply died