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Woman's 58 Years In Iron Lung End

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The Associated Press

Published: May 29, 2008

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A woman who defied medical odds and spent nearly 60 years in an iron lung after being diagnosed with polio as a child died Wednesday after a power failure shut down the machine that kept her breathing, her family said.

Dianne Odell, 61, had been confined to the 7-foot-long metal tube since she contracted polio at 3 years old.

Family members were unable to get an emergency generator working after a power failure knocked out electricity to the Odell family's residence near Jackson, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, brother-in-law Will Beyer said.

"We did everything we could do but we couldn't keep her breathing," Beyer said.

"Dianne had gotten a lot weaker over the past several months and she just didn't have the strength to keep going," Beyer said.

Capt. Jerry Elston of the Madison County Sheriff's Office said emergency crews could do little to help. The local power company reported spotty power outages in the area because a tree fell on a power line.

Odell was afflicted with "bulbo-spinal" polio three years before a polio vaccine was discovered and largely stopped the spread of the crippling childhood disease.

She spent her life in the iron lung, cared for by her parents, other family members and aides provided by a nonprofit foundation. Although confined inside the 750-pound apparatus, Odell managed to get a high school diploma, take college courses and write a children's book about a "wishing star" named Blinky.

"Dianne was one of the kindest and most considerate people you could meet. She was always concerned about others and their well-being," said Frank McMeen, president of the West Tennessee Health Care Foundation that helped raise money for equipment and nursing assistance for Odell.

Odell accepted her life with grace, McMeen said.

"Everyone she encountered came to her because they cared about her," he said, "so she grew up in her 61 years thinking every person is good."

Odell's iron lung, similar to those used during the U.S. polio epidemics that peaked in the 1950s, was a cylindrical chamber with a seal at the neck. She lay on her back with only her head exposed and made eye contact with visitors through an angled mirror. She operated a television set with a small blow tube and wrote on a voice-activated computer.

The positive and negative pressures produced by the machine forced air into her lungs and then expelled it.

Iron lungs were largely replaced by positive-pressure airway ventilators in the late 1950s that give users much more freedom of movement. However, a spinal deformity from the polio kept Odell from wearing a more modern, portable breathing device.

In a 2001 interview, Odell said she wrote her children's book to show youngsters, especially those with physical disabilities, that they should never give up. "It's amazing what you can accomplish if you see someone do the same thing," she said.

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