Dianne Odell
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Dianne Odell (February 13, 1947[1] – 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.
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.[2] About 100,000 copies of the book, Blinky, Less Light, have been sold.[3] This book was briefly mentioned by actress Jane Seymour in her 2004 work Remarkable Changes: Turning Life's Challenges into Opportunities.[4] 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.[5]
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.
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.
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.[6]