Sydney (dpa) - An Australian polio victim confined to an iron lung
respirator for the past 60 years has died, a spokeswoman for
Melbourne's Thornbury nursing home said Saturday.
June Middleton, who was 83, entered the Guinness Book of Records
three years ago for spending the longest time in an iron lung.
She celebrated the milestone in April in the company of friends
and her dog, Angel.
"It's hard to explain, but it's what you've got to do - make the
most of it, get over the obstacles on the way," she said at the time.
Middleton, who spent 21 hours a day in her iron lung, took
pleasure in visiting St Kilda beach, where she swam as a child,
travelling there in a purpose built van.
Middleton was rendered a quadriplegic when she contracted
poliomyelitis in 1949 at the age of 22, just a week before she
intended to marry.
Thousands of Australians died, and tens of thousands were
crippled, in the polio outbreak of 1949.
Polio has been eradicated from the developed world because
children are vaccinated against it at birth.
There are now few people confined to the telephone-box sized iron
lungs, which inflate the lungs of those like Middleton who can't
breathe on their own.
Middleton also had other methods of artificial respiration, but an
iron lung was her constant companion since 1949.
The iron lung was invented by Philip Drinker in 1928 and perfected
by fellow American Jack Emerson. It uses air pressure to regulate
breathing, taking over the role of the muscles lost to polio.
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