Paralyzed from the neck down as a result of childhood polio, Ms. Mason was one of the last handful of Americans, perhaps 30 people, who live full time in iron lungs.They say that courage is simply "grace under pressure."
“I’m happy with who I am, where I am,” Ms. Mason told The Charlotte Observer in 2003. “I wouldn’t have chosen this life, certainly. But given this life, I’ve probably had the best situation anyone could ask for.”
Requiescat in pace, Martha Ann Mason.
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Surviving the drop was remarkable considering the spot the student leaped from is more than 200 feet off the water - and 99 percent of the estimated 1,500-plus people who have jumped from the bridge since it opened in 1937 died from the fall.