Brooke Davies | Senior News reporter Published July 11, 2026 4:36pm Updated July 11, 2026 4:36pm Martha Lillard rests in her iron lung in February (Picture: Cindy McVey via AP) One of the last polio survivors to live inside an iron lung has died at the age of 78 after the machine became too old to repair. Martha Ann Lillard died on June 26 after spending more than 70 years living inside the 1940s device. She was diagnosed with polio on her fifth birthday in 1953. Lillard, of Shawnee, Oklahoma, told KFOR last month: ‘I woke up, and it was sunny outside, and I started to sit up, and my neck was killing me. ‘I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow.’ She fell unconscious four days later and was unable to breathe or move. ‘They usually didn’t like to put children in because they fought it, but I