As it progresses through the body, the polio virus paralyzes muscle groups, ultimately leaving patients unable to breathe on their own. Children stricken with polio would spend weeks or months lying in the iron lung, reading, watching TV, or just staring at an upside-down image of the room reflected through a mirror above their heads. Most patients who progressed to this stage died, but with the help of the iron lung, some survived. There was no treatment for polio at the time, beyond trying to live through it.
This woman lived in an iron lung for 61 YEARS after being paralysed by polio at the age of eleven: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2450792/The-woman-lived-iron-lung-61-YEARS.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mason_(writer)