WORTHINGTON - Judy Coggon Smith has been leading a double life for 50 years.

Those acquainted with this life-long area resident may know her as a wife, mother and grandmother; devoted daughter; a nurse; an avid knitter and a church volunteer.

However, what most of her acquaintances and even some of her closer colleagues and friends may not know is that Smith is a super-hero by helping to defeat a world-wide killer in the summer of 1952.

The cure for polio may have needed the genius of Dr. Jonas Salk and his research team at the University of Pittsburgh, but it also needed the courage of those to first receive the polio vaccine.

Judy was the 16th person to receive a vaccine in the Salk study.

Smith recalls that long ago spring when disaster struck: "One night I went to bed and the next morning, I could hardly walk. My parents had to practically carry me."

It was early in the summer of 1952 and their family physician still made house calls.

"For almost six weeks, I stayed in bed and the doctor kept coming to the house, telling my mother to keep putting hot towels on my legs," said the 66 year-old woman.

Despite her mother's diligent care, there was no progress.

A hospital visit brought the diagnosis of polio.

Polio, a viral disease that was likened to a "summer cold," ravaged the country for more than 50 years. It was always most active during the warmer months.

Polio's favorite victims were children and this particular year was already looking grim. By the end of 1952, more than 58,000 people in the United States would be stricken with polio and several thousand would die.

There was no medical treatment to prevent, interrupt, diminish or stop polio. Those who survived it were often left with permanent physical weaknesses.

Muscles were commonly affected. Many children spent some and even all of their time lying in large metal cylinders known as iron lungs that enabled them to breathe.

The Coggons knew their daughter needed expert care. She saw a specialist, Dr. Jessie Wright, a female physician who was the medical director of the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children in Leetsdale. She confirmed the polio diagnosis and urged a plan for treatment at the Watson Home.

The choice for treatment at Watson may have been easy, but getting there was not.

"I cried the whole way there," Smith said. "When we got there, my mom asked the administrator when they could visit me the next day. She was told in no uncertain terms that they would not visit me until the weekend."

In the Watson Home, Smith immediately set goals for herself.

"I asked Dr. Wright if I would be able to go to school in the fall. I just wanted to get back to my friends," she said.

Wright's response was essentially that her progress would depend upon her efforts.

"I worked hard," Smith said, "I lived in that gym."

But despite faithful adherence to her daily program of extensive stretching, walking, and eventually strengthening, she still experienced a great deal of pain as well as weakness in various parts of her body. Most affected was her right leg; but polio took its toll on her chest, lung and vocal cords too.

The Watson Home was not all work and no play, however. Smith recalled singer Pat Boone and his signature shoes, white bucks, were all the rage that summer. He had a television show, which could be seen on the one television set at the home.

"We would line up in our wheelchairs and someone with really strong arms would be in the front. Then we'd make a chain with our chairs and wheel everyone together over to the wing that had the TV, to watch Pat Boone."

All of those hours in the gymnasium paid off for Smith as she returned to school that fall with a few schedule modifications and a pair of crutches.The Coggons were also faced with a decision that could have life-altering consequences not only for them, but also for countless others.This decision was whether to allow Smith to participate in the medical research being done by a team from the University of Pittsburgh, led by Dr. Salk, to develop a vaccine for polio.Salk's team had done extensive experimentation on animal specimens in the lab that showed great promise. Now the time had come for human testing.Each test participant's blood would be sampled to determine which of the three known strains of polio they had. They would then be injected with the inactive, or dead, virus of the other strains.While this process would not worsen their existing strain, it did pose the risk of the patient contracting the other strains.Hattie and Herb Coggon had to weigh a risk to their daughter. But, they also knew that herparticipation in the study could spare other families from this disease.The Coggons signed the numerous papers and shook hands with Dr. Salk. Smith became just the 16th human to be injected with the first Inactive Polio Vaccine.She remembers Salk as a kind man who had dark hair and always wore a white lab coat. Smith said Salk himself often drew her blood samples because others had difficulty accessing her veins.Other memories have somewhat blurred over the years for Smith.She voices no bitter or bad memories of Watson, but, rather, looked at it for what it really was. She was there not for summer camp, but for a summer full of uncertainty, pain, hard work and undoubtedly some sadness.Smith survived the endless hours of treatment, the endless weekdays with short weekend family visits and the Salk experiment that would ultimately alter medical history.After being discharged in the fall, she returned to Watson on a weekly basis for continued blood work and medical exams.Her family knew that they were a part of a medical experiment, but did not see themselves as actual role players.Smith slowly regained her strength and gradually re-entered the life of a high school freshman. She used crutches for several weeks and a cane for months thereafter.From then on, the summer of 1952 was history. Smith graduated from high school on schedule, married, and led a successful life as a mother and a nurse.She worked as a registered nurse for four decades, primarily in obstetrics/gynecology, caring for babies, the ones who were the most susceptible to that terrible disease that attacked her.Aside from the need to use an elevator instead of stairs, Smith required no other job modifications. But her right leg remains bothersome.While Smith's experience with polio was not a secret, she did not broadcast it, either. Many of her peers, even medical doctors, who worked with her, did not know her background.Her daughter, Kim, said, "We knew that she had polio, but it just wasn't talked about. But, there were some things that she just couldn't do."When our family would go boating, Mom couldn't participate in what the rest of us did, but she could sure knit a mean sweater sitting on the boat while she watched us in the water."After a recent visit to D.T. Watson, the first since 1952, Smith's daughters asked her why she did not keep in contact with the place or people she met there.Smith said, "I guess it's because I accomplished what I wanted to do and decided just to move on."Those are words that could be appreciated by the kind, dark-haired man in a white lab coat.

On April 12, 1955, medical researchers were able to give the country good news - a safe, effective vaccine for polio was available for widespread use.Many Western Pennsylvanians were instrumental in helping find this cure because they were affiliated in various ways with the research team of Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh who created the vaccineTo learn about this discovery that changed medical history, go to these sources:The federal government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at www.cdc.gov, not only has a base of pertinent data, it also has a comprehensive listing of other polio-related resources, including the University of Pittsburgh.The history of the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children can be accessed according to the facility's present name, the Watson Institute, at www.watsoninstitute.org.Two recently published books, "A Splendid Solution" by Jeffrey Kluger and "Polio: An American Story" by David Oshinsky.