Rome, 1950. I was twenty-two and had been traveling through Europe for six weeks with Carol, my college roommate. We had another month remaining before returning to the United States.

“We were healthy, rambunctious kids, our parents abided by every single public health recommendation to try and protect us and yet, when a virus wants to hit, it’s going to hit everywhere it wants to.”

The hospital was "overwhelmed" with polio patients. His parents were told to take him home, live in quarantine and do the best they could. Survivor Jim Smith

Kat caught polio at 14 months old. She was on an iron lung and wore leg braces until she was 5.

Born in Taiwan, May contracted polio when she was barely 1. As May and her husband BOTH struggle with Post-Polio Syndrome differently, she can see clearly how different the late effects of polio can be for others.

One hot summer day in 1930, she was brought down to a swimming pool in Newark NJ to cool off and go for a swim. The two year old was told not to dunk her head in the water.

Recently I had the opportunity to return to the hospital where I received twenty-two months of rehabilitation following polio in 1952. At that time it was known as the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children.

When I was seven months old, my Mother and Daddy noticed my runny nose and how much I was falling when I was trying to hold onto furniture and pull myself up. By the time the tests were completed, I couldn’t stand at all.

John Nanni, as most people who contract polio do, got it as a baby, just one year before the vaccine became widely available.

Ann Lee Hussey is a polio survivor and a veterinary technician who travels the world leading other volunteers on trips to vaccinate children against polio.

Ina Pinkney was infected in 1944, during World War II, more than a decade before the Salk Vaccine became available, stemming the annual summer epidemics that paralyzed communities almost like it paralyzed children.

David contracted polio from the live polio vaccine when he was a baby. It was later discovered he had a serious underlying immune disorder, which meant he was susceptible to many infections, including polio.

Six-year-old Wilma Rudolph was different from the other kids. They could walk, run, and jump, but she was hampered by a paralyzed, twisted left leg.

I’m talking about an old-fashioned winter like when I was a kid in the 1950s. The snow started after Thanksgiving and it snowed ’til the end of February.

Polio, which caused the asymmetrical freezing of my muscles, not only shaped my body, but also moulded my personality. A virus — something that itself exists on the border between being alive and dead — had the power to write the manuscript of my life.

It was a very hot day. When they passed Logan Circle she let him play in the water fountain. That’s the day they believe he caught polio. The next day, they blocked off the entire area.

Explanation of the disease Polio and resource list of famous people living and deceased who had polio in their lives.