Polio Paul
Paul Alexander passed away on March 11th, 2024 and with his passing, we say goodbye to a truly remarkable man. You might know him as “Polio Paul” or “the man in the iron lung.” His story is one of the most incredible examples of human strength and perseverance you’ll ever hear. When Paul was just six years old, back in 1952, he caught polio during a major outbreak in the U.S. Within days, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn’t breathe on his own, and doctors didn’t expect him to survive. But they placed him in an iron lung, a large, tube-like machine that helped him breathe and that machine kept him alive. Most people who ended up in an iron lung didn’t live very long. But Paul did something extraordinary. He lived for more than 70 years inside that machine. Living inside an iron lung, most people would assume a life of quiet existence, devoid of achievement. But Paul consistently defied limits, defining life on his own terms. He graduated from high school, then college...