Obit: Martha Mason wrote a book about years in iron lung
May 11th, 2009
From New York Times, Associated Press/Greensboro [NC] News & Record, Charlotte Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, Shelby [NC] Star:
Martha Mason, author of the memoir “Breath,” died in her North Carolina home last week shortly before her 72nd birthday. Mason had lived more than 60 years in an iron lung after a childhood bout with polio left her paralyzed from the neck down.
Mason was one of the last handful of Americans to live full-time in an iron lung. An official from the March of Dimes said there was no documented case of any American who had done so for quite so long.
From her horizontal world – a 7-foot-long, 800-pound iron cylinder that encased all but her head – Ms. Mason lived a life that was by her own account fine and full, reading voraciously, graduating with highest honors from high school and college, entertaining and eventually writing.
She chose to remain in an iron lung, she often said, for the freedom it gave her. It let her breathe without tubes in her throat, incisions or hospital stays, as newer, smaller ventilators might require. It took no professional training to operate, letting her remain mistress of her own house, with just two aides assisting her.
Mary Dalton, an associate communications professor at Wake Forest University, produced a documentary about Mason’s life in 2005. “She always wanted people to see she was a person, separate from the iron lung,” she said. “Once you got engaged in a conversation with her, you forgot about the iron lung. … She was really funny, she was really smart … She never wanted to be pitied.”
(Photo from the Charlotte Observer)
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