here's yet another note on why you should get your children vaccinated. dianne odell was born before the polio vaccine.

For more than 50 years, Dianne Odell lived inside a 7-foot-long metal tube, unable to breathe outside of it but determined not to let it destroy her spirit for life.

From her 750-pound iron lung, she managed to get a high school diploma, take college courses and write a children's book about a "wishing star" named Blinky.

But a power failure shut off electricity to the tube and stopped the pump drawing air into her lungs, leading to the death of Odell, 61, on Wednesday.

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