HICKORY, N.C. — North Carolina polio survivors are concerned that the disease could make a comeback after seeing cases of it on the rise in New York. 


What You Need To Know

  • The New York state health officials say the person who tested positive for polio was not vaccinated

  • Polio was also detected in the wastewater in several New York counties, which caused officials to declare a state of emergency

  • No polio cases have been detected in North Carolina, but survivors say the severity of the illness still haunts them today

  • A few miles outside of downtown Hickory is the site of what used to be a polio hospital known as the Miracle of Hickory


In September, the CDC declared the U.S. was a confirmed country with circulating poliovirus. It was based on criteria from the World Health Organization. The U.S. now joins 30 other countries where circulating poliovirus has been detected. 

New York state health officials say the person who tested positive for polio was not vaccinated. Polio was also detected in the wastewater in several New York counties, which caused officials to declare a state of emergency.

Doctors say most schools across the United States require the polio vaccine. The vaccine provides protection through adulthood, but a polio booster is an option. The CDC urges anyone with questions about polio to consult with their doctor. 

No polio cases have been detected in North Carolina, but survivors say the severity of the illness still haunts them today. 

Dan Moury remembers his bout with polio well. He was diagnosed with polio in the 1940s and was taken to the Hickory Emergency Infantile Paralysis Hospital. His dad, Norman Moury, filmed video of the hospital. It gives a rare glimpse into what the epidemic was like. Over the course of nine months, 454 patients were treated at the facility. 

“They wanted to separate the polio patients from non-polio patients,” Moury said. “That is why the hospital was built.”

Polio hit its peak in North Carolina during the 1940s and 1950s. According to the North Carolina Historic Project, Hickory was known as “polio city” because it was the hardest hit municipality in the state. The illness spread by person-to-person contact and mostly affected children.

Moury also collected pictures and posters from the epidemic.

“This notice went on the front door of our house, and the front door of every polio patient,” Moury said as he pointed to a quarantine sign.

(Spectrum News 1/Kari Beal)

Moury says he recently became concerned when he saw headlines of a polio case in New York and that the virus has been circulating in wastewater in several New York counties since May.

“It may be we are moving into a time of more sickness like this,” Moury said.

Because of childhood polio, Moury still walks with a limp. His calves and feet are also different sizes. He feels lucky he had a mild case of polio, but says some people had it much worse than him.

Greg Horne is one of those patients. He loves radio and music. He says it’s his escape. He couldn’t do sports or physical activities as a child because he was paralyzed.

“Being in a wheelchair, music was a way to really keep me busy,” Horne said.

He contracted polio when he was nine months old.

“They didn’t expect me to live,” Horne said. “All the hospitals were filled up, so they sent me home. They told my parents I probably would not survive two or three months.”

Under the constant care of his mom, he beat those odds. He is, however, permanently handicapped from the waist down.

“I am a lucky survivor of polio, but it still bothers me to this day,” Horne said.

About 40 miles south of Hickory, the Lattimore museum displays a reminder of just how severe the illness was. Polio survivor Dianne Garner says her friend Martha Mason lived a life that many can’t imagine.

“This is the iron lung that she lived in,” Garner said. “It was set up so that her head would go here and the motor would go ‘swish, swish.’ It put air into her lungs and then took it back out.”

(Spectrum News 1/Kari Beal)

Garner says Mason spent 61 years living in an iron long. She contracted polio at 11 years old and was sent to a hospital in Asheville. Mason managed to earn a bachelor’s degree and then an honorary doctorate from Gardner-Webb University. But there is no question that life for patients with polio was a monumental challenge. 

“Thousands of people passed away, and thousands had to live with this,” Garner said.

Garner says even those who didn’t have a severe case of polio sometimes experienced problems later in life. It’s called post-polio syndrome, and it can affect polio survivors decades after they experience the illness.

“You might have a lot of pain and have less endurance,” Garner said. “It affects your organs.”

Buck Walker says his wife Janet experienced this in the worst way possible. She had mild polio as a child that impacted her legs, but she could still walk after. That all changed when she turned 65.

“She lost the use of her feet, and lost the use of her hands and then she stopped breathing,” Walker said.

He says she was on a respirator for a week before she died.

“The doctor at the hospital says it was post-polio syndrome that killed her and acute respiratory failure,” Walker said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, post-polio syndrome affects about 25% to 40% of polio survivors.

Historian Richard Eller says in the 1940s there was no cure for polio. But in 1955, that all changed with a vaccine.

“That was really the breakthrough that gave everybody some hope that vaccinations would prevent these epidemics from happening, and they pretty much did,” Eller said. 

The CDC says there were more than 15,000 cases of polio paralysis across the country in 1950. After the vaccine was distributed in the 1960s, the number plummeted to 100. By 1979, the number fell to zero, and the U.S. declared the virus was eradicated.

Horne has several grandchildren and is grateful they have protection thanks to the vaccine.

“They will never have to suffer the consequences of polio, and that means all the world,” Horne said.

It’s a feeling of relief that Moury also experienced when his son got vaccinated.

“I walked out in tears — because he was protected,” Moury said.

Polio was a tragedy that scarred their childhoods and left irreversible damage. These survivors hope no one else has to endure pain and suffering they did.