A Personal Journey with Polio
Posted by Ed Iskra
on Feb 01, 2012
Chester Draper was born in Emo, Ontario. At age thirteen, in 1953 he, his four siblings and parents lived in Atikokan. He was an active healthy 110 lb boy, barely a teenager when he and his sister suddenly contracted polio. Polio affects people in different ways. His sister was afflicted in the upper chest and died within 24 hours. On the day he caught polio he recalled walking home and suddenly feeling very weak. When he made it home his mother had him taken to the hospital immediately. There was no treatment for polio then, only quarantine and isolation. The viral stage lasts for one to two weeks. Within a month he lost the use of his legs and his weight dropped to just 45 lbs.
Chester recalled that although their home had been quarantined by the health authorities the neighbours were very supportive. His parents were determined to get the best treatment available and by 1956 had amassed a staggering debt of $60,000.00.
There is a predisposition to getting polio but none of his three surviving siblings were affected. In that year 9 people in Atikokan died from polio, part of the 25,000 that died in all of Canada.
Jonas Salk perfected a vaccine for polio in 1953 and within two years polio was eradicated from Canada.
But the vaccine’s availability remained an issue in many parts of the world. In the 1970’s there were 350,000 deaths each year in India. Chester said the technology to fight polio was there, but the finances were not.
Chester Draper lived in many communities in Ontario over his lifetime. He retired as a Program Supervisor from Correctional Services after 28 years of service. Active in the community, active in Scouts Canada, he is also a member of a wheelchair curling team that represented Northern Ontario at the Canadian Nationals for three of the past four years.
Last summer, at age 71, he entered the Manitoba Marathon in the handcycling event and won. That winning time was good enough to qualify for his next challenge, the 2012 Boston Marathon.