Dianne Odell

Dianne Odell was a Tennessee woman who spent most of her life in an iron lung. She contracted "bulbo-spinal" polio at age 3 in 1950 and was confined to an iron lung for the rest of her life. Due to a spinal deformity caused by the polio, she was unable to change to a portable breathing device introduced in the late 1950s. Odell's condition was not as severe in youth and she could spend short periods outside the machine until her 20s, from then on she needed to be in it 24 hours a day. Caregivers could still slide Odell's bedding out of her iron lung for basic nursing care but only briefly.