Inside an Iron Lung

Rotarian builds his own iron lung replica to teach a new generation about polio.

Dispatched to Ghana with a fellow British Rotarian to scout club service opportunities, Roger Frank hadn’t planned their visit to coincide with National Immunization Days, but the pair – Frank and Dr. Carl Hallam – jumped, unhesitating, into the thick of inoculations. During a four-day stretch in October 2015, nearly 2,000 children in the area were protected from poliomyelitis. The effort galvanized Frank, who brainstormed for a way to do even more at home: How could he promote polio eradication when few of his countrymen gave much thought to the scourge?