this is a question tag question. When forming a question tag, the verb and subject from the main sentence are used, and the polarity (positive/negative) is reversed.
The main sentence is: "No one was around to help us..."
The subject is "No one," which is treated as a plural pronoun ("they") in question tags.
The verb is "was," which is negative because of the word "No one."
Therefore, the question tag must be positive and use the plural form: "were they?" The question asks about the presence of people, so "there" is the correct pronoun. The final question tag is "were there?"
