How many people where at the
spot where they were told to drink the poison but they were able to escape. (not including the people who were boarding the plane)
shareI'm going on vague memories here of the book "Raven", but there were several groups of survivors at Jonestown (not counting the group at Georgetown).
A number of people (10-15?) in several family groups hid in the jungle. This was in the hour or so between the time that the Congressman's group left for the airport and Jones' summoning to the pavilion. I believe most of them asked permission to have a picnic or some such thing.
There were 1 or 2 elderly people that hid in their cabins and didn't answer the summons to the pavilion--whether they knew something bad was going to go down or simply didn't want to face another all night session of Jones ranting, I don't know.
There were 2 lawyers there dealing with the Stoen child custody case. Jones told them to hightail it minutes before the poison started being handed out. They heard the gunshot that killed Jones.
There were at least 2 men who (separately) came up with ruses that got them past the armed guards. One of them said that Jones had sent him on an errand.
There were the three men (sorry, can't remember their names) that Jones asked to deliver the Temple's money to the Soviet embassy.
The documentary, for whatever reason, didn't mention most of the ones who escaped, possibly because there were multiple groups who got out in a variety of ways.
Outside of those that Jones sent away himself, I think that only the two men managed to escape the Pavilion once the mass poisoning started.
I really recommend reading "Raven". It is long, but fascinating, and covers a lot of details never mentioned in the documentaries. (One advantage of books over films).
I enjoyed (if you can use that word with this subject) this documentary. It is good to hear from the survivors.