Dr Forrest M. Bird, a World War II veteran and inventor of respiratory medical devices, died on Sunday, Aug 2 at the age of 94 in his home in Sagle, Idaho, according to the New York Times.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Dr Bird pioneered some of the first portable and reliable mechanical ventilators for people with acute and chronic heart and lung afflictions. These relatively small devices, used in all but the worst cases, made primitive and expensive mechanisms like the iron lung virtually obsolete only a decade after hospital wards had been lined with them at the height of paralytic polio epidemics.
Thanks Dr. Bird for your amazing inventions!
Thank you Dr. Bird for the amazing inventions which saved so many lives. Without you I wouldn’t have had a career.
Had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Bird speak at the diamond conference in the mid-90s. What a fasinating brillant man! We will forever be grateful to this beautiful human being.