http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2010/09/10/who-knows-history-of-hotels-iron-lung/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=who-knows-history-of-hotels-iron-lung Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State Sun, 19 May 2013 23:54:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2010/09/10/who-knows-history-of-hotels-iron-lung/comment-page-1/#comment-996908 Spencer E. Nolen, Sr. Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:56:10 +0000 http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/?p=10507#comment-996908 I am a history buff, concerning the American Fire Service, Emergency Medical Services, and volunteer rescue squads.
Mr. Julian Stanley Wise was the founder of the first volunteer rescue squad in the world. This occured in Roanoke Virginia in 1928. In the 40′s and fifties, a polio epidemic swept through parts of Virginia and North Carolina. In one paticular situation known to Wise, a small child died before a Iron Lung could be secured for the child’s use in Roanoke. Wise started soliciting funds for some Iron Lungs to be used wherever they were needed. The Roanoke Life Saving Crew purchased several and they would be driven/placed on trains to wherever they were needed (all over the United States). Julian Wise was consulted on the founding of the Charlotte Life Saving Crew and was a honnary member there. They were a volunteer rescue squad in Charlotte. I am willing to bet that the Hotel in question provided the funds for the Iron Lung, and the Charlotte Life Saving Crew owned and operated the device. There are a few Iron Lungs still out there. There are an adult and infant iron lung in Danville Virginia. There is at least one that was with the Hunton Life Saving Crew in existenace in Roanoke, Virginia that was found at their old grew hall. I have heard that there are still some patients in these devices, and that there are 30-50 of them still in use because they were better suited for some forms of the damage caused by polio.

]]> http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2010/09/10/who-knows-history-of-hotels-iron-lung/comment-page-1/#comment-806958 Tiffany Sun, 17 Jun 2012 12:37:06 +0000 http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/?p=10507#comment-806958 So is the iron lung still in Eastern NC? Are there any others in NC? I would love to have one on display at an upcoming Rotary conference since Rotary International founded Polio Plus in 1985 to help eradicate this disease.

]]> http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/index.php/2010/09/10/who-knows-history-of-hotels-iron-lung/comment-page-1/#comment-52690 Lew Powell Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:35:01 +0000 http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/ncm/?p=10507#comment-52690 From Shelia Bumgarner, archivist in the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library: “My best guess is either a guest of the hotel skipped, could not pay his bill and left this behind or died at the hotel and the machine became a conversation piece or a relative of the person who once managed the hotel needed an iron lung. But facts, I regret I have none to offer.”

]]>