Paul Richard Alexander was disabled at age 6 by a case of poliovirus. He was born on January 10, 1946, in Dallas, and he contracted the disease before the American form of the vaccine was developed. Paul was paralyzed almost entirely and placed in an “iron lung.” For 70 years, he has spent only a few moments of his daily life outside of his iron lung machine. Despite that, he became a lawyer and an author.
Paul Richard Alexander is a role model for people with disabilities who want to succeed in life despite their difficulties because he completed high school, went to college, and became a practicing lawyer who has appeared in court hearings. He even published a book in 2020, typing on a keyboard with a stick he held in his mouth. Paul Alexander is 77 years old today.
Paul Richard Alexander’s Disease and the Iron Lung
The highly contagious virus Paul Richard Alexander contracted is called poliomyelitis. Paul was six years old in 1952 when a polio epidemic swept through the Dallas neighborhood where he and his family lived.
It was the biggest outbreak in the history of the United States, killing hundreds daily, mostly children.
A week after his symptoms first appeared, they deteriorated dramatically. At this point, Paul was not able to talk. He was brought to Parkland Hospital, where he joined hundreds of other critically ill children.
After some time, Paul Richard Alexander’s sickness rendered him unable to breathe on his own, so he was put in an iron lung, which is a negative-pressure mechanical respirator with a covered aperture for the patient’s neck.
Paul was in the hospital for a total of 18 months, and he was in the iron lung the entire time. In the eyes of doctors, Paul initially had no chance of recovery. However, he had a strong will to live and was making miracle progress in his recovery.
— What is an iron lung?
The first “iron lung” was developed in 1927, and subsequent refinements were made in the 1950s in response to widespread polio epidemics. The device is an enclosed pressure chamber large enough to fit a human, within which a pressure different from atmospheric pressure is created. The “iron lung” helps a person who cannot move his muscles to breathe by pumping air into and out of his lungs at varying pressures.
In 1954, his parents brought the machine and their son home, where they set him up with a physical trainer who specialized in helping those with paralysis of the breathing muscles learn to breathe through their mouths.
Paul Richard Alexander was taught by the doctor to breathe like a free diver, using the glossopharyngeal method.
The technique is based on drawing oxygen into the lips and using the motions of the tongue to force it into the trachea and lungs. After contracting polio, Paul was not able to breathe like other people since the diaphragm is also made of muscles.
His parents rewarded him with a dog after he spent a year training to stay outside his iron cage for three whole minutes. After practicing glossopharyngeal breathing for three years, Paul Richard Alexander was able to go for several hours without his iron lung.
In his younger years, Paul refused the practice of sitting at home and tried to attend parties and clubs, just like other people, and also prayed at church and traveled on planes and ocean liners.
During his adulthood, he led and joined a sit-in protesting for the rights of people with impairments.
Paul Richard Alexander’s Academic Life
After mastering the unusual breathing technique, Paul started school and learned quickly by memorization since he was not able to take notes. Just like Franklin Roosevelt, who contracted polio as a child and was paralyzed below the waist, Paul was an ambitious child who dreamed of becoming president.
Paul Richard Alexander continued his education despite obstacles. He was one of the first students registered in the Dallas Independent School District’s distance education program in 1959 at the age of 13.
He graduated from high school (W.W. Samuell High School) at the age of 21. He became the first high school student ever to graduate from high school through a distance education program.
Simultaneously, Paul Richard Alexander had only “fives” and one “four” on his graduation certificate. He got a “4” in biology because he was paralyzed and therefore unable to dismember an animal.
After completing high school, Paul took and passed the university entrance exams. But despite his good grades, the rector’s office still denied him admission based on his disability.
Paul surmounted the rector’s opposition with the help of his instructors in high school. After two years of struggle, he registered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, finished, and then attended the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.
In Paul’s classroom, he was the only student with a disability.
Paul used a wheelchair for transportation around the campus. However, he spent the vast majority of his time in the “iron lung,” where he also studied. This happened as a result of persistent feelings of embarrassment.
Paul Richard Alexander’s presence at the university in a wheelchair garnered media attention because, in the 1960s, the United States had no federal disability inclusion initiatives and people with impairments were not prominent in society.
Paul Richard Alexander graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in 1978. He attended law school after finishing university, earned his Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1984, and was admitted to private law practice in 1986 after passing the bar exam.
A Career as a Lawyer and His Retirement
In order to help him out after he graduated from law school, Paul Richard Alexander employed Kathy Gaines. To this day, she has provided both work and care support to Paul from her home next door.
Since he was already able to handle his own difficulties, many people believed that Paul would be able to handle judicial disputes with ease.
In his time as a lawyer, Paul Alexander has dealt with wills, estates, social security conflicts, criminal trials, civil trials, cases involving minors, and business and governmental issues in court.
As he got older, Paul’s stamina gradually declined. When he was over the age of 70, he could no longer muster the stamina to spend more than a few minutes outside of his iron lung. At 74 years old, he began to stay in the iron lung almost all the time because he needed the respirator to breathe. Today, Paul Richard Alexander is 77 years old.
In 2020, Paul became the only living person using an iron lung. 2022 marked the year Paul Alexander used his iron lung for 70 years, which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest-living individual in an iron lung.
Paul Alexander is still using his iron lung in the bedroom of his modest Dallas apartment.
Paul Richard Alexander Published a Book
Paul and his friend Norman D. Brown published an autobiography book in 2020 titled Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung. It was Kathy Gaines who came up with the name of the book.
During the making of the book, Paul conveyed the words to his friend verbally, and he also wrote many of the pages himself, using a pencil he held in his mouth and typing on a keyboard using it.
The first writing implement Paul could use was a flat stick with a fountain pen attached to the end, which his father fashioned for him. In time, his father crafted an assortment of sticks for various uses. Paul put them to use in his writing, drawing, and typing.
The Discontinuation of Paul’s Iron Lung Machine
In the late 1960s, iron lung machines stopped being produced. Paul’s machine sometimes broke, and he didn’t want to switch to a breathing tube, which would have required a tracheostomy (hole in the throat) and forced him to change his way of life completely. Due to the risks of having a tracheostomy, Paul did not want to have a hole in his neck.
In 2018, the United States was home to all three of the world’s operational iron lung machines. After the air pressure in his iron lung failed in 2015, Paul’s friends helped him find an expert by posting a YouTube video, who was able to restore his respiratory equipment.
Because no living technicians or engineers are left to maintain these devices. After the vaccine was developed, there was no longer a requirement to educate people on how to care for the iron lungs.
Brady Richards was an expert mechanic and engineer who worked at the Environmental Testing Laboratory and whose hobby was fixing racing cars. He deduced the iron lung’s design, created replacement parts, and got Paul’s “lungs” back in working order.
Paul Richard Alexander’s Private Life
During his college years, Paul was engaged to a fellow student named Claire, but the engagement was called off after Claire’s parents prohibited her from keeping in touch with Paul. So, Paul put off tying the knot forever.
Paul developed an intimate, strictly professional connection with his caregiver and aide, Kathy Gaines.
In 2018, Paul saw Sue Perry, who had been by his side in the polio unit 65 years ago for the same illness. She was 4 years old at the time, and she was not as severely affected by the poliovirus as Paul was, so she made a full recovery. When she learned that Paul Richard Alexander was alive, Sue immediately tracked him down.
As of today, all of Paul Richard Alexander’s family members have predeceased him, including his elder brother Nick.
History of Polio Disease
During the epidemic that affected Paul Richard Alexander, there were a total of 58,000 cases of polio, over 21,000 cases of disability, and around 3,150 cases of death in the United States.
There were global polio infections before the vaccine was developed in 1955. In the 1940s and 1950s, poliovirus was widespread, causing the deaths or paralysis of an estimated 600,000 individuals worldwide annually.
The highly contagious viral illness Paul Richard Alexander contracted is called poliomyelitis. Children younger than 5 years old are particularly vulnerable to contracting poliomyelitis. The poliovirus can impair the nervous system and cause spinal cord damage, just like it happened with Paul Richard Alexander.
Today, the World Health Organization estimates that polio causes general disability in 1 out of every 200 cases.
Paul Richard Alexander at a Glance
Who is Paul Richard Alexander?
Paul Richard Alexander was born on January 10, 1946, in Dallas, and contracted poliomyelitis when he was 6 years old, before the American vaccine was developed. As a result, he became almost entirely paralyzed and was placed in an “iron lung” where he has spent almost every moment of his life for the last 70 years. Despite his disability, he became a lawyer and author and published a book in 2020 by typing on a keyboard with a stick he held in his mouth.
How did Paul Richard Alexander become a lawyer?
After completing high school through a distance education program, Paul Richard Alexander was denied admission to university because of his disability. With the help of his instructors in high school, he overcame this opposition and attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he finished and then attended the University of Texas School of Law in Austin. He became a practicing lawyer who has appeared in court hearings and even published a book in 2020, typing on a keyboard with a stick he held in his mouth.
What is an iron lung, and how does it work?
An “iron lung” is a negative-pressure mechanical respirator with a covered aperture for the patient’s neck. The device is an enclosed pressure chamber that creates a pressure different from atmospheric pressure large enough to fit a human. The “iron lung” helps a person who cannot move his muscles to breathe by pumping air into and out of his lungs at varying pressures. The machine was first developed in 1927 and later improved in the 1950s in response to widespread polio epidemics.
How did Paul Richard Alexander breathe without his iron lung machine?
After contracting polio, Paul Richard Alexander was unable to breathe like other people, and his parents brought the iron lung machine home. They set him up with a physical trainer who specialized in helping those with paralysis of the breathing muscles learn to breathe through their mouths. He was taught by the doctor to breathe using the glossopharyngeal method. The technique is based on drawing oxygen into the lips and using the motions of the tongue to force it into the trachea and lungs. After practicing glossopharyngeal breathing for three years, Paul Richard Alexander was able to go for several hours without his iron lung.
References
- Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung – Paul R. Alexander – Google Books
- Polio survivors from Parkland reunite six decades later – Wfaa.com
- Poliomyelitis – Who.int
- The Last Few Polio Survivors – Last of the Iron Lungs – Gizmodo – YouTube
