Paul Alexander, who was stricken with polio as a boy and spent more than 70 years needing an iron lung chamber to help him breathe but obtained a law degree and later gained a social media following as he recounted tales of his life, died March 11. He was 78.
The death was announced in a statement from his brother Philip but no other details were immediately made public. “So many people were inspired by Paul,” he wrote. “I am just so grateful.”
Mr. Alexander was recently hospitalized for treatment of covid-19, his social media site said. He was later released.
Mr. Alexander, a native of Dallas, contracted polio in 1952 when he was 6. Within days, he was nearly fully paralyzed and close to death, unable to breathe on his own. A doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy to suction congestion from the boy’s lungs.
He awoke with his body inside an iron lung, a device that uses air pressure to help patients breathe after paralysis of their chest muscles. As polio cases rose in the 1940s and ’50s, some hospital wards in the United States had rows of iron lungs.
“I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t cry,” Mr. Alexander told the podcast “Pandemia” in 2022. “I couldn’t do anything.”
He eventually regained his ability to speak and developed techniques to breathe on his own, and spent increasing periods outside the iron lung. “I gulped in the air and swallowed it with my lungs,” he said.
He received a high school diploma at 21 with the help of a tutor who spent years with Mr. Alexander. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas in 1978, then received a law degree in 1984, and worked as a lawyer for decades. He often spent much of the day outside the iron lung, but he was never fully free of the device.
As his health deteriorated in recent years, Mr. Alexander had to spend increasing amounts of time inside the chamber.
The title of his self-published memoir in 2020, “Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung,” describes his first attempts to breathe on his own as a boy after returning from the hospital inside the iron lung. As a reward for his effort, he received a pet dog. The book took him eight years to finish, sometimes dictating passages or using a plastic stick to tap on a keyboard.
“My life was a combination of one … adventure, miracle — whatever you want to call it — after another,” he once said.
The death was announced in a statement from his brother Philip but no other details were immediately made public. “So many people were inspired by Paul,” he wrote. “I am just so grateful.”
Mr. Alexander was recently hospitalized for treatment of covid-19, his social media site said. He was later released.
Mr. Alexander, a native of Dallas, contracted polio in 1952 when he was 6. Within days, he was nearly fully paralyzed and close to death, unable to breathe on his own. A doctor performed an emergency tracheotomy to suction congestion from the boy’s lungs.
He awoke with his body inside an iron lung, a device that uses air pressure to help patients breathe after paralysis of their chest muscles. As polio cases rose in the 1940s and ’50s, some hospital wards in the United States had rows of iron lungs.
“I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t cry,” Mr. Alexander told the podcast “Pandemia” in 2022. “I couldn’t do anything.”
He eventually regained his ability to speak and developed techniques to breathe on his own, and spent increasing periods outside the iron lung. “I gulped in the air and swallowed it with my lungs,” he said.
He received a high school diploma at 21 with the help of a tutor who spent years with Mr. Alexander. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas in 1978, then received a law degree in 1984, and worked as a lawyer for decades. He often spent much of the day outside the iron lung, but he was never fully free of the device.
As his health deteriorated in recent years, Mr. Alexander had to spend increasing amounts of time inside the chamber.
The title of his self-published memoir in 2020, “Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung,” describes his first attempts to breathe on his own as a boy after returning from the hospital inside the iron lung. As a reward for his effort, he received a pet dog. The book took him eight years to finish, sometimes dictating passages or using a plastic stick to tap on a keyboard.
“My life was a combination of one … adventure, miracle — whatever you want to call it — after another,” he once said.
