After being paralyzed by polio at the age of 6, Paul Alexander was confined for much of his life to a yellow iron lung that kept him alive. After this diagnosis, he was not expected to survive, and even when he exceeded all odds, his life was limited mainly by a machine in which he couldn’t move.
However, the toll of living in an iron lung because of polio didn’t stop Mr. Alexander from going to varsity, earning a law degree and practicing law for over 30 years. As a boy, he learned to breathe for a couple of minutes and even a few hours, but he had to make use of a machine daily.
According to his brother Philip Alexander, he died on Monday at the age of 78. on social media.
He was one of the few people in the United States living in an iron lung, which works by rhythmically changing the air pressure in the chamber, pushing air in and out of the lungs. In the final weeks of his life, he gained a following on TikTok by sharing what it was wish to live for so long on an outdated machine.
No official cause of death was given. However, he said Mr Alexander was briefly hospitalized with Covid-19 in February TikTok account. After returning home, Mr Alexander had trouble eating and staying hydrated as he recovered from the virus, which attacks the lungs and might be particularly dangerous for the elderly and people with respiratory problems.
According to his book, “Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in the Iron Lung,” Alexander contracted polio in 1952. He quickly became paralyzed, and doctors at Parkland Hospital in Dallas placed him in an iron lung so he could breathe.
“One day, from a deep sleep, I opened my eyes and looked around, looking for something, anything, familiar,” Mr. Alexander wrote in his book, which he wrote by putting a pen or pencil to his mouth. “Everywhere I looked, everything was very strange. Little did I know that with each new day my life was inevitably heading down a path that became unimaginably strange and more difficult.”
Although innovations in science and technology led to the invention of portable ventilators for individuals with respiratory problems, Mr. Alexander’s chest muscles were too damaged to make use of every other machine, and he says he used iron lungs for much of his life. “Dallas Morning News.”which profiled him in 2018.
While Mr. Alexander was inside the machine, he needed help from others to perform basic tasks resembling eating and drinking. As he wrote in his book, his caregiver, Kathy Gaines, provided assistance for most of his life.
Mr. Alexander launched his TikTok account in January and with the help of others, he began making movies about his life. Some covered broader parts of his life, e.g how he practiced law from iron lungs.
In other videos, he answered questions from over 330,000 followers about more mundane but interesting facets of his each day life, resembling how he managed to get relief. (The caregiver needed to unclog the iron lung and use a urinal or basin.)
In one videoMr. Alexander detailed the emotional and mental challenges of living in an iron lung.
“I feel lonely,” he said as the machine buzzed in the background. “Sometimes it’s desperation because I can’t touch anyone, my hands don’t move and no one touches me except on rare occasions, which I really appreciate.”
Mr. Alexander said in the video that he had received emails and letters over the years from people battling anxiety and depression, and he gave them some advice.
“Life is extraordinary,” he said. “Just hang in there. It’ll get better.”
Paul Richard Alexander was born on January 30, 1946, in Dallas, the son of Gus Nicholas Alexander and Doris Marie Emmett. After playing outside on a summer day in 1952, he returned home with a 30-degree fever, a headache and a stiff neck, his mother wrote in the introduction to her book.
“I had every reason to be terrified and I was,” she wrote. “Polio, the disease that scares every parent, roamed our city like a great black monster, paralyzing and killing wherever it appeared. Here’s Paul with all his symptoms.
Mr. Aleksander spent several months in hospital, where he came close to death several times.
“Finally one day the doctor called us and told us that Paul couldn’t live much longer and if we wanted him at home with us when he died, we could take him,” his mother wrote.
His mother wrote that his journey home with an iron lung left hospital employees “strained” and required the involvement of a truck with an in-bed generator to maintain the machine running.
At age 8, Alexander learned to breathe on his own for up to 3 minutes, inhaling air “like a fish” and swallowing it into his lungs, he told The Dallas Morning News.
Alexander told the newspaper that he was motivated to learn to breathe by his caregiver, who offered him a puppy if he tried to learn to breathe on his own. He got a puppy, which later became the inspiration for the title of his book, “Three Minutes for a Dog.”
According to The Dallas Morning News, Alexander was one of the first students to be homeschooled through the Dallas Independent School District, and in 1967 he graduated second in his class from W.W. Samuell High.
“The only reason I didn’t get in first,” he told the newspaper, “is because I couldn’t pass the biology lab.”
After highschool, Alexander attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas before transferring to the University of Texas at Austin to review economics and finance, in keeping with “Alcalde” – alumni magazine from the University of Texas.
According to Alcalde, by learning to breathe on his own, Alexander was in a position to live for hours outside the iron lungs, and students in his dorm took him to classes in a wheelchair. He then attended law school at the University of Texas and received his law degree in 1984.
Alexander is reportedly survived by his brother, nephew Benjamin Alexander, niece (*78*) Dodson and sister-in-law Rafaela Alexander. Monument of Dignity. His funeral will likely be March 20 at Grove Hill Funeral Home & Memorial Park in Dallas.
Before his death, v video posted on TikTok On January 31, Alexander said he was surprised and moved by the response to his videos.
“It makes me feel like someone really cares about me,” he said. “I wish I could hug each and every one of you.”