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 Hawaiian beach as people stared at the scars of my gunshot wounds. I just kept walking. And I learned with every step that, as difficult as it may be, you just have to take the next step. You just have to force yourself to do it. In the jungle on that November day, it was not my turn to die. But certainly now was my time to live.”
Life Gives No Guarantees
“I survived the massacre in Guyana and went on to marry an emergency-room physician. I was also elected to serve in the California legislature. We had our first child and life was turning out to be just as I had dreamed. We tried for more children, but after two miscarriages, a failed adoption, and fertility treatments, Steve and I decided to give up on our dream of another child. I launched a statewide campaign to become California's Secretary of State. Miraculously, three months later, I found myself pregnant in what doctors termed a high-risk pregnancy. I promptly withdrew from the campaign to focus on the health of our unborn child.
“On a rainy January day, three months into my pregnancy, I was en route to Sacramento when my secretary tracked me down to tell me that Steve had been in a car accident. I immediately phoned the emergency room and talked with the attending physician. I could tell by his voice that my husband's injuries were severe and I was an hour away. As I rushed back to the hospital, I feared the worst.
“Once I arrived, it seemed like hours before they would let me see Steve. When I finally got to see him in the ICU, he had a shunt in his head and was on a respirator. His body was warm, but the machines indicated he had no brain function. I kissed him. I held him. I told him I loved him, even though I knew he couldn't hear me. I couldn't believe that yet another nightmare was unfolding in front of me.
“I later learned that an uninsured driver with faulty brakes had careened through a stop sign, broadsiding Steve's car. His carelessness killed a talented, caring, vital man. I was now a pregnant widow with a young son.
“The loss of my husband was traumatic. I no longer even wanted to get out of bed. Yet, I really had no choice. I was the sole supporter of two children, one yet unborn. Steve had no life insurance, so his death was both an emotional and a financial disaster. I had to sell everything, including my home. I spent the next eight years as a single mother raising two children.
“Today, many years later, I am fortunate to live with great joy and happiness. I am married to a wonderful man, Barry Dennis, whom I met on a blind date. He was a confirmed bachelor, yet, five months later, we were engaged! My children are now happy, well-adjusted, and healthy adults.
“I want women to remember that, when life leaves them alone on the tarmac—whether it be the devastating loss of a loved one, the shattering of a lifelong dream, the loss of a job, or events that turn the world
