Paul Richard
Alexander (January 30,
1946 – March 11, 2024)
Lawyer and Writer
Was an American paralytic polio survivor,
lawyer and writer. The last man to live in
an iron lung.
History:
Alexander was born on January 30, 1946, in Dallas[1] to Gus Nicholas Alexander, the child of Greek immigrants,
and Doris Marie Emmett, of Lebanese descent. He contracted polio at the age of six and was paralyzed for life, only
able to move his head, neck, and mouth.
During a major U.S. outbreak of polio in the early 1950s, hundreds of children around Dallas, Texas, including
Alexander, were taken to Parkland Hospital. There, children were treated in a ward of iron lungs. He almost died in
the hospital before a doctor noticed he was not breathing and rushed him into an iron lung.
He spent eighteen months in the hospital. At discharge, his parents rented a portable generator and a truck to bring
him and his iron lung home. Beginning in 1954, with help from the March of Dimes and a physical therapist named
Mrs. Sullivan, Alexander taught himself glossopharyngeal breathing, which allowed him to leave the iron lung for
gradually increasing periods of time.
Alexander was one of the Dallas Independent School District’s first home schooled students. He learned to
memorize instead of taking notes. At the age of twenty-one, he graduated second in his class from W. W. Samuell
High School in 1967, becoming the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without physically attending
a class.
Alexander received a scholarship to Southern Methodist University. He transferred to the University of Texas at
Austin, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1978, then a Juris Doctor in 1984. Before he was admitted to the bar
in 1986, he was employed as an instructor of legal terminology to court stenographers at an Austin trade school. He
represented clients in court in a three-piece suit and a modified wheelchair that held his body upright.
Greatest achievement:
Alexander was declared the longest surviving iron lung patient last March by the Guinness World
Records. He contracted polio during an epidemic of the debilitating disease in the 1950s as a child living
in Texas. Despite his condition, Alexander graduated from college with a law degree and ran his own legal
practice.
Alexander earned a bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctor at the University of Texas at Austin, and was
admitted to the bar in 1986.
Alexander, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1978 from the University of Texas and a law
degree from the school in 1984, was a driven man who had a strong faith in God, said Spinks.
Book:
Three Minutes for a Dog: My Life in an Iron Lung(2020)
