Paul Alexander, lawyer who lived for decades with an iron lung, dies aged 78

Paul Alexander: ‘an inspiration to so many people’. Photograph: Allison Smith/The Guardian

Paul Alexander, who lived much of his life in an iron lung after contracting polio at the age of six, has died at the age of 78.

The Texas resident was paralysed from the neck down by the disease and went on to become an inspirational figure, graduating from law school, writing a memoir and painting using a brush that he held in his mouth.