04/22/2026
While the ingenuity is laudable, we don’t want to go there again. Let’s do what we can to End Polio Now!
The Iron Lung High School of 1952
August 1952. Polio epidemic. 57,628 cases in the US. Worst year on record. In Houston, Texas, Jefferson Davis Hospital had 47 kids in iron lungs — metal cylinders that breathed for them when the virus paralyzed their chests. Only their heads stuck out.
School was cancelled. But the kids were bored. And scared.
So Nurse Pat Sullivan, 34, and janitor Eddie Banks, 51, started a school. Eddie mounted a chalkboard on the ceiling. Pat stood on a ladder and taught algebra upside down so the kids could read it. They passed worksheets on yardsticks. Kids took tests by blinking — one blink yes, two blinks no.
They had a newspaper called “The Wheezer” — dictated, typed by Pat, printed on hospital mimeograph. Sports section covered wheelchair races in the hall. Comics were drawn by Eddie.
For graduation, they couldn’t move the seniors. So they brought the stage to them. The mayor stood in the ward and handed diplomas to each kid, one head at a time. The valedictorian, Tommy Ruiz, 17, gave his speech through a mirror so he could see the crowd. He said: “Polio stopped our legs. Not our minds.”
8 of 12 seniors that year went to college. 4 became teachers. The ward closed in 1959. Pat kept the chalkboard.
#1952
