Dianne Odell

Dianne Odell (February 13, 1947 – May 28, 2008) was a Tennessee woman who spent most of her life in an iron lung. She contracted polio at age 3 and was confined to the iron lung for the rest of her life.

Odell's Iron lung, which was seven feet long and weighed 750 pounds, produced positive and negative pressures that forced air into her lungs and then expelled it. She lay on her back with only her head exposed and made eye contact with visitors through an angled mirror. She was able to operate a television set with a small blow tube. She was cared for by her parents, other family members and aides provided by a nonprofit foundation.

Despite her difficulties she had some successes. She graduated from high school and took long-distance classes from Freed-Hardeman University. She was unable to earn a degree, but did receive an honorary degree. She also wrote a children's book using a voice activated computer. About 100,000 copies of the book, Blinky, Less Light, have been sold. This book was briefly mentioned by actress Jane Seymour in her 2004 work Remarkable Changes: Turning Life's Challenges into Opportunities. 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.

Despite her condition, friends say that Odell accepted her life with grace. In a 1994 interview with the Associated Press, sh stated that "I've had a very good life, filled with love and family and faith. You can make life good or you can make it bad." In a 2001 interview with The Associated Press, Odell said she wrote her children's book to show youngsters, especially those with physical disabilities, that they should never give up. "It's amazing what you can accomplish if you see someone do the same thing," she said.

On February 17, 2007 (the Saturday following her 60th birthday), she was temporarily moved to The New Southern Hotel in Jackson, for celebrations attended by approximately 200 guests and with a nine-foot birthday cake. Sje also received letters from well-wishes from people all over the country.

Due to a spinal deformity caused by the polio, she was unable to change to a portable breathing device introduced in the late 1950s. This made her one of the longest time users of an iron lung, being confined to it for nearly 60 years. Currently, it is estimated that only 30 people in the United States still rely on iron lungs but few users are confined to them all the time. Caregivers could slide Odell's bedding out of her iron lung for basic nursing care but only briefly.

She died on 28 May 2008, aged 61, due to a combination of power failures (power cut and generator failure) cutting the breathing device's electricity.