logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2024
16m 58s

My Iron Lung (Revisited)

RADIO DIARIES & RADIOTOPIA
About this episode
Paul Alexander, one of two people in the U.S. still relying on an iron lung to survive, died on March 11, 2024 at the age of 78. Paul contracted polio in 1952 at six years old, and has had to rely on an iron lung — a big metal ventilator that encases the body from the neck to toes — since then. We spoke to Paul a few years ago about his life and the lessons ... Show More
Up next
Yesterday
Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier 1: The Bus Ride
On February 12, 1946, a Black soldier was heading home from WWII when he was brutally beaten by a white police officer in South Carolina. No one knew the identity of the police officer. No one even knew the town where it happened. When the famous radio host Orson Welles heard abo ... Show More
12m 19s
Feb 9
TRAILER: Orson Welles and the Blind Soldier
On February 12, 1946, an African American soldier heading home from WWII was attacked by a white police officer somewhere in South Carolina. The soldier's name was Isaac Woodard.No one knew the identity of the officer who attacked Woodard. No one even knew which town it had happe ... Show More
4m 35s
Jan 14
Remembering Claudette Colvin
A little over a decade ago, we went to interview a woman at her small one-bedroom apartment in a sprawling complex in the Bronx. She was living a quiet and somewhat anonymous life. But many years earlier, she had done something remarkable.The woman’s name was Claudette Colvin. In ... Show More
11m 41s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2022
EP276: Trapped Inside a Tube: The Iron Lung Story and Benjamin Rush, Founding Father and Father of American Psychiatry
On this episode of Our American Stories, Daryn Glassbrook of the Mobile Medical Museum tells the story of the iron lung, a device used to keep people with advanced polio alive in the first half of the 20th century. New York Times bestselling author, Harlow Giles Unger, of twenty- ... Show More
38m 14s
Mar 2022
Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer: How to Fight for Health Equity
Dr. Paul Farmer, who passed away unexpectedly in Rwanda on February 21st, fundamentally changed the way healthcare is delivered in the most impoverished places on Earth, touched millions of lives, and inspired countless others to follow his example. In tribute to his extraordinar ... Show More
29m 39s
Jul 2021
The Queen of Dying
<p>If you’ve ever lost someone, or watched a medical drama in the last 15 years, you’ve probably heard of The Five Stages of Grief. They’re sort of the world’s worst consolation prize for loss. But last year, we began wondering… Where did these stages come from in the first place ... Show More
1 h
Dec 2023
Death Interrupted
<p>As a lifeguard, a paramedic, and then an ER doctor, Blair Bigham found his calling: saving lives. But when he started to work in the ICU, he slowly realized that sometimes keeping people (and their hopes) alive just prolongs the suffering. He wrote a book arguing that a too-la ... Show More
24m 5s
Dec 2021
EP139: Trapped Inside a Tube: The Iron Lung Story and H.P. Rama, The Accidental Hotelier
On this episode of Our American Stories, Daryn Glassbrook of the Mobile Medical Museum tells the story of the iron lung, a device used to keep people with advanced polio alive in the first half of the 20th century. Indian American hotelier H.P. Rama the story of the ethical dilem ... Show More
38m 16s
Apr 2019
Fu-Go
<p>This week we’re going back to a favorite episode from 2015.</p> <p>During World War II, something happened that nobody ever talks about. This is a tale of mysterious balloons, cowboy sheriffs, and young children caught up in the winds of war. And silence, the terror of silence ... Show More
35m 35s
Feb 2018
The Politics of Friedrich Nietzsche: German Idealism, Nazism, and Freud
<p>Wes Alwan is one fourth of The Partially Examined Life, a podcast and blog dedicated to studying and teaching philosophy. Wes is a writer and researcher living in Boston who studied ancient philosophy, Kant and Nietzsche in graduate school. </p> <p>Wes joins Brett to discuss t ... Show More
1h 4m
Mar 2024
Hold On
<p>Two years ago, the United States did something amazing. In response to the mental health crisis the federal government launched 988 - a nationwide, easy to remember phone number that anyone can call anytime and talk to a counselor. It was 911 but for mental health and they hop ... Show More
47m 35s
Feb 2024
Cheating Death
<p>In this episode, Maria Paz Gutiérrez does battle against the one absolute truth of human existence and all life… death. After getting a team of scientists to stand in for death (the grim reaper wasn’t available), we parry and thrust our way through the myriad ways that death c ... Show More
41m 49s