Timely Escape Described
One of them, Julius Evans, a 30-year-old respiratory therapist, had been avoiding reporters at the hotel. But yesterday he told how he and eight others who had been planning to escape for months slipped out of Jonestown on the morning of Nov. 18, only hours before the commune began to disintegrate.
Often carrying the youngest in the group, a 3-year-old boy, Mr. Evans said they walked 22 miles through the jungle, following Amerindian trails and an old railroad track that led to a police outpost in the former manganese mining town of Matthew's Ridge.
Mr. Evans said he had come to Jonestown seven months ago on the promise that he would receive additional training and work in his medical specialty with ,ore responsibility than he had had in the United States.
"But I ended up mostly treating sores---leg ulcers, mosquito bites and athlete's foot," he said. "There was an epidemic of athlete's foot. Everybody in town had it. Everybody used the same shower. There was no ventilation on the floor and the lack of proper cleaning of the floor caused it to spread.
"There was also a lot of diarrhea and nausea," he continued. "Sanitation was very poor. You could hardly breath in the outhouses. We used cement bags, cardboard and newspaper for toilet paper . Some people even used leaves."
July 22, 2010, The Daily Iberian, Local who survived Jonestown dies, by Justin Hall,
For New Iberia resident Robert Paul, being a survivor of one of the worst mass murders in American history did not win him a million bucks on some television show but rather something more valuable:
His life.
No comments:
Post a Comment