and more people started coming forward saying that they also wanted to leave. Then suddenly, a couple of men with guns appeared. Chaos ensued as more people approached us wanting to leave. Jim Jones started ranting and screaming. Larry Layton, one of Jones' closest assistants, said: ‘Don't get the wrong idea. We are all very happy here. You see the beauty of this special place.’ One hour later, Larry Layton had become one of the defectors, asking to escape the jungle compound.”
3
WHEN LEFT ON THE TARMAC, START WALKING.
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.
IVY BAKER PRIEST, FORMER US SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (1905–1975)
Three Minutes from Death
“People began screaming and crying, some parents engaging in a tug-of-war over their children—one wanting to go; the other wanting to stay. So many people had decided to escape the People's Temple that the consulate had to order another plane.
“We left for the airstrip. Dressed in an oversized yellow poncho, Larry Layton, Jones' assistant, seemed overly eager to board the cargo plane. I distrusted him and asked that he be searched before boarding. A journalist patted him down, but did not find the gun Layton had hidden under his poncho. Thinking back, I now realize how helpless we were—a congressman, congressional aides, journalists, and cameramen; not one among us a police officer or military escort. We had nothing to protect us other than the imagined shield of the invulnerability of a US congressman and members of the US press corps.
“Suddenly, we heard a scream. Seconds later, I heard an unfamiliar noise. I saw people running into the bushes and realized that the noise was gunfire. I dropped to the ground and curled up around a wheel of the plane, pretending to be dead. I heard footsteps. I felt my body twitch as someone pumped bullets into me at point-blank range. I was shot five times.
“The gunmen continued to walk around the tarmac, shooting innocent people. Soon it was quiet. I opened my eyes and looked down at my body. A bone was sticking out of my arm, and blood was everywhere. I remember thinking: My God, I am twenty-eight years old and I am about to die. I yelled out for Congressman Ryan, calling his name several times. There was no answer.
“The plane's engine was still revving, and I thought that if I could just get to the cargo hatch, I could escape this place. I crawled toward the opening, dragging my body as close as I could to the baggage compartment. A reporter from the Washington Post picked me up and put me into the cargo hold. I remember asking him if he could give me something to stop my bleeding, and he gave me his shirt. I was losing so much blood that the shirt was soaked in seconds.
“The plane was filled with bullet holes, and we soon realized that it would never make it out of this hell on earth. Someone pulled me out of the plane and placed me back on the airstrip. Accidentally, they laid my head upon an anthill and ants started crawling all over me. Lying next to me was a reporter's tape recorder. I taped a last message to my parents and brother, telling them that I loved them.
“Supposedly, the Guyanese Army was going to secure the airstrip and rescue us, so I held on tightly to the belief that the army would come. It grew dark, and we continued to wait. Although I was in excruciating pain, I clung to life.
“In the middle of the night, word reached those on the tarmac that there had been a mass suicide at the People's Temple. At one o'clock the next day, twenty hours after the shootings, the Guyanese Air Force arrived. Their arrival coincided with a message to the world that more than 900 people, including a US congressman and members of his delegation, were dead. The headlines called it the worst mass suicide in history. To this day, I still refer to the events at Jonestown as a mass murder.
“The Guyanese Air Force transported the survivors to a waiting US Air Force Medivac plane. Etched in my mind is the memory of how I felt at that very moment, as if someone had wrapped me in the American flag. I was so grateful.
“Loaded with survivors, the Air Force plane set off for the United States. As we taxied down the runway, I recall glancing down at my body. It seemed so surreal, as if the mangled lump of flesh belonged to someone other than me. Months later, I was told that the medical technician who tended to me during the flight said that I was three minutes from death.”
One Step Forward, One Day at a Time
“When we finally arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, where I was immediately taken into surgery, I had developed gangrene, and surgeons debated whether to amputate my leg. After four hours of surgery, the nurse wheeled me out of the surgical ward, and there stood my mother, who had traveled from San Francisco to be with me. They told her that they needed to transfer me to the Baltimore Shock/Trauma Center to attempt to stem the spread of gangrene. I begged my mother and the doctors to transfer me by ambulance, fearing I would die on another plane flight.
“The shock/trauma center was lit with incredibly bright lights. Numerous IVs were hooked up to me. I remember asking the nurse how many calories there were in all the stuff that was flowing into my body.”
“Three thousand,” she replied.
“I said: ‘Oh, my God, I am going to get so fat!’ Interesting, isn't it, how we can lose perspective in the middle of trauma?
“After yet another surgery, I was returned to my hospital room. The surgeons had repaired my body, but my hair was still matted with dried blood, Guyanese dirt, and dead ants. In an act of love I will never forget, my brother tenderly washed my hair.
“The doctors remained very concerned about the gangrene in my wounds. In a last-ditch effort, they began a series of hyperbaric treatments that required me to be placed into a chamber that resembled an iron lung filled with antibacterial microbes and oxygen. Each time they removed me from the chamber, I vomited violently. Unfortunately, they had to repeat this process several times.
“Confident that they had beaten the gangrene, they transferred me back to Arlington Hospital, where I was placed under twenty-four-hour protection, with US Marshals posted outside my door. Threats had been made against my life by individuals associated with the People's Temple. They blamed the congressional investigation for the mass deaths in Guyana and wanted to retaliate.
“The surgeons performed skin grafts on my legs. The gunshots had blown apart my right arm, and a steel dowel was inserted to hold together what remained. The radial nerve in my arm was damaged, and I could not use my fingers or lift my arm. The first time they tried to get me on my feet to walk, I fainted. After being hospitalized for nearly two months and enduring ten surgeries, I was finally discharged and flew back to San Francisco.
“The days ahead were a flurry of interviews about the Jonestown massacre. I was not allowed to stay in my home because of the death threats, so I lived with a friend. I still carried two bullets in my body that doctors had deemed too risky to remove. I never appeared in public without layers of clothes to cover what I had begun to believe was my hideous, disfigured body. In the following years, I would endure months of physical therapy to regain the use of my arm.
“I was twenty-eight, a single woman who could hardly feed herself and whose body was maimed and scarred. One day, I realized that if I was going to get over this—if I was ever going to move forward—I had to figure out a way not to wallow in self-pity.
“The exact moment I came to terms with what had happened in Guyana occurred years later, on a crowded beach in Hawaii. The disfigured body I walked in was mine. The joy I felt at just being alive had become greater than my insecurities. I had come to realize that a person's body was irrelevant and physical beauty was a shallow concern. I was disabled, but I did not believe that a disability of any kind prevented me from living a full and wonderful life. If anything, my disfigurement had opened my eyes to the bias often harbored toward those who are different.
“I put on a bathing suit that day and walked across the