Betancourt praises fellow hostage as jungle nurse
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 07:58:00 07/04/2008
Filed Under: Kidnapping
BOGOTA -- A Colombian soldier saved her life by nursing her when she fell ill in captivity, Ingrid Betancourt said Thursday, a day after she, the soldier and 13 other rebel-held hostages were rescued.
Corporal William Perez, 36, was captured by leftist rebels in March 1998 in the jungle department of Caqueta in southern Colombia where was stationed at the time. He had a basic knowledge of nursing because he had worked at Bogota's military hospital.
"He was my nurse in moments when I was in very bad health. I want to recognize him specially, because if it were not for William, I would not be here today," Betancourt told reporters in Bogota, grasping Perez's hand.
Perez, himself visibly sick, told how Betancourt fell into such a deep depression that she could not move her arms, and at moments lost consciousness.
"She was very weak, and I had to give her a lot of serum, to feed her carefully because she could not eat anything, anything she ate she vomited," he said.
"I helped her to get up and get down because she lacked the will even to walk. She couldn't walk," he said, adding that while the rebels sometimes had medicine, they did not know how to use them.
"The guerrillas had things there but didn't know what they were, so I would ask for one thing or another and give the medicine to Ingrid," Perez said.
"Sometimes Ingrid told me she wanted to die because she saw no way out. She was very sick. In the footage you saw that scandalized the world, she was already getting better," he said.
Concerns about Betancourt's health mushroomed after she appeared gaunt and depressed in a video taped in October and released publicly in November.
She became so ill earlier this year that her rebel captors took her to medical facilities in southeastern Colombia, Colombia's ombudsman said in March.
Ombudsman Volmar Perez said at the time that Betancourt was suffering from hepatitis B and leishmaniasis, a skin disease caused by insect bites, citing sources he declined to identify.
Thursday, dozens of residents of the northern city of Riohacha crowded the small home of Carmen Medina, Perez's mother, to celebrate with her.
"I feel so much happiness, I don't know how to describe it," local media quoted her as saying.
Perez said Thursday he wanted to return to the army, but never again to the nursing he was forced to do in captivity.
Perez was one of 11 soldiers and police rescued along with Betancourt and three US nationals in a daring Colombian intelligence operation Wednesday. Most had been held hostage for more than a decade.
All 11 exhibited symptoms of illnesses contracted in the jungle, including malaria, leishmaniasis and digestive problems.
But Second Lieutenant Raimundo Malagon, taken hostage in August 1998, said freedom felt like rebirth.
"I want our compatriots who are still in the jungle to know that their moment will come. That we are waiting for them and will work for their release," he said.
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