Original subtitles

It's just guns in my face.

I thought I was being robbed.

If I had to say what was the worst moment of my life, it was that moment.

It's a pretty powerful situation when you believe that you're going to die in

the next few seconds.

Well, in the summer of 2001, life in Palm Springs was good. In fact, probably

anybody in the world would have loved to trade places with me.

This is one of the most pleasant climates on the face of the earth to

These towering mountains, these beautiful palm trees, and these spacious

boulevards, and this is where the movie stars come and live.

It was the perfect life.

I had the most successful judo school in the whole part of the county.

Get a good grip, chest to chest.

Good students, good friends.

No matter how wonderful Palm Springs was, it got old. It got

old real quick.

I've been competing in judo and internationally for a number of years.

Your entire life is focused on your upcoming event.

And all of a sudden, I thought.

And I looked around, and I felt like every day was predictable.

I didn't feel alive.

I feel that to feel awake, you need some kind of challenge.

I decided to ride a motorcycle to the tip of South America and back.

I mapped it out. I was going to be hitting 14 countries, and I had up to a

The most important, the closest person to me that I was leaving behind was my

daughter, Skye.

Hey, Dad, what's up?

I broke her the news.

That was right before her birthday.

And I know it disturbed her.

But she dealt with it.

She dealt with it.

The first three and a half weeks were one.

Heading down the Mexican coast, it was like a dream world.

Mexico, Central America, from Guatemala into El Salvador, into Honduras,

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Panama City was the end of the trail.

Pan American Highway ends right there.

Next stop, Bogota, Colombia.

This is it. I'm in Columbia.

This is the big scare story.

Columbia had been listed as the kidnapping capital of the world at that

I would always ask the people that I met, what about the safety situation?

It was the cab drivers that said, the kidnappings are up.

But they couldn't really tell me any specifics.

I'd stop in a cafe to sit and talk with the students. Is it safer to be on a

bike, would you say, than a car? Yeah, sure.

You know, they look for people who look wealthy. And you don't look wealthy at

all.

Just don't stop, you know. The students were unanimous in saying it was safe.

Well, rather than go directly south to Ecuador, my plan was to do a road test,

go to Medellin, northwest, instead of direct south.

I saddled up and I said, this is it.

As I'm leaving the city, it's like any other city in the U .S.

Overpasses and cars are whizzing by and four -lane freeways.

toll roads and whatnot.

As I head toward the country, traffic trickles down.

After another hour, I'm virtually the only person I see on the road.

There's nothing. There's no people.

There's no traffic.

There's really nothing out there.

And then it starts to get spooky.

I've got this feeling.

I couldn't put my finger on it.

It's this premonition that something's going to go wrong.

And that's when I started going, hmm, do I turn around or do I keep going?

I feel that if you turn around once, that you'll always turn around.

I make a decision.

And I'm going to keep going.

I came around the last hairpin and there they were.

About maybe 20, 30 guys.

I think they're going to shoot me for sure.

There was no doubt in my mind.

Absolutely none.

And then it's just guns in my face.

I've got my hands up. I'm trying to be as cooperative as possible.

They had some rickety old peasant bus stop.

I thought I was being robbed.

One guy that seemed like he was in control there, they ordered me off the

And so I'm standing there with my hands up, and they're yelling and screaming.

They open up my saddlebags and they're yelling, and that means clothes.

At this point, I think, well, this is just a robbery, and I'm actually doing

mental calculations.

Well, I can buy that again. I can get this, I can get that, and, you know, be

cool and don't argue with these guys.

And the guy's waving his gun. He's going, okay, vamos.

I thought that he meant to get back on the bike, and that's not what he meant.

He was furious at that

point. He was furious. The guy was spitting fire.

So now it's really escalated.

I'm trying to be as politely non -compliant as possible.

They're pointing to the back of this bus, and I'm going, why do you want me

behind there?

They're going to kill me.

No quiero ir.

I don't want to go.

And they're saying, you know, you're going.

I don't want to go.

I can never remember a time where I was thinking that fast.

I just flat out refused to go with him.

I figured piss him off and take a bullet there in front of the witnesses.

I said, Oslo, a key.

We just do it here.

He pulled a 9mm out.

He chambered around and he pointed at my face.

It's a pretty powerful moment when you believe that you're going to die in the

next few seconds.

And I closed my eyes.

If I had to say what was the worst moment of my life, it was that moment.

It popped around.

It was an ear -splitting noise.

I did not believe I was alive.

And as I'm being led away, I'm looking at the people on the bus like, I'm

shouting with my eyes, tell somebody what you saw.

They're thinking they're going to snag some Colombians by the side of the road,

and all of a sudden, They got a foreigner. They got an American. They

believe what they scored.

If I would stop, somebody would push me from behind.

The terrain is straight up on one side, straight down the other.

The whole thing is like stumbling, falling, sliding down.

We're running as fast as we possibly can.

After about 15 minutes, they stop, and they're like on the radio chat. They're

going, Santander, Santander.

You can imagine how fast your mind is spinning around like this.

And I said, who are you guys?

Who are you?

That's when he turned around, and he got his face right up to mine, and he

screamed at me.

And when he said ELN, I went, I just got this horrible feeling.

Chills went down my spine. And I was already in about the worst situation I

could imagine. When they said ELN, then I knew it was a rebel group.

I knew I'm going with him. So if I'm going with him, I might as well act like

it's my idea.

I was looking for you.

I'm a writer. I made this little bogus ID on my computer. It said I work for a

motorcycle magazine as a journalist.

I've been looking all over for you guys.

And I said, can you do me a favor and take me to the Comandante?

They're just laughing like, don't worry, you're going to meet him.

We marched a solid up and down six to eight hours.

We get to this little clearing and there's a shack.

And he put my hands behind my back and he took this cord and they tied him up.

Off I go to meet the Comandante.

No.

They start with the questions, and who are you, and what are you doing here?

I came a long way looking for you guys to write your story. I just wanted to

write a feature on you and your men.

I know it's a story that nobody's buying, but I don't have anything better

say.

Mentiroso is liar in Spanish.

Nobody said

anything about ransom, but it's clear that's why they're asking all these

questions.

They kept asking about my family. I said, I don't have a family. You have

children. We know about your children. I don't have children.

I didn't want them to know that I had a family. I wanted to convince them that I

was worthless.

And I didn't dare mention anything about my daughter.

That was the ultimate secret.

I'm coming up with the same answers and the same answers.

And I could tell he's starting to get mad.

And he yells out, mentiroso, mentiroso.

And that was like the signal to the guy behind me.

All I was doing was dealing with the moment.

How do I get out of here?

How do I stay alive?

The next morning, they brought me out.

Your mind's just racing.

And I started thinking of escape.

They handed these guns to these kids. They slapped me with their weapons. And

they know how to clean them and load them.

I wouldn't be surprised if they'd never fired them.

I thought to myself, I could disarm any one of those guys at any time.

The first day, I had a shot.

I could be sitting in these mountains three years from now, cursing myself for

being stupid enough not to take the move when I have it.

I said, this is it.

At the last second, I changed my mind.

They control the hillside, so I would have done my sprint for freedom and run

right into a whole platoon of these guys.

As a mobile fighting force, we would march every day.

And the marches were six, eight, sometimes ten hours.

And you're going up and down all day.

The haul of weapons and ammunition and the food.

This is terrain that in other circumstances, I couldn't, I wouldn't be

walk that voluntarily.

I got a gun in my face.

Vamos.

Get up. Vamos.

Vamos.

Every night, religiously, I was asked 20

questions over and over again.

Who's your wife? We know about your family.

I heard the story about a guy from Switzerland. They kept him for a couple

years. They say, we want five million dollars.

And they don't know whether you have the five million dollars or not.

So negotiations take forever.

I'm telling you the truth.

I'm telling you the truth.

I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth.

I'm trying to think what to say, what to do, and to extract myself from the

situation.

I had to make them think that if they kept me beyond a certain point, I was

going to die.

I have prostate cancer.

And I come up with the idea of telling them that I have prostate cancer.

I'm telling you the truth.

And they were familiar with it. They understood it.

I have prostate cancer.

And they'd look at each other and nobody convinced, you know, 100 % either way.

But if they think I'm going to die, that puts a timetable on something.

The fifth night, we were camped out on this ridge.

And I could hear this helicopter coming.

One of my bigger fears was a rescue attempt.

If somebody said, hey, we'll come and get you, I would have said, no, don't

it.

We could hear it for a long period of time creeping along this ridge.

This is flying low, low enough that it's blowing things around the camp.

You can smell the diesel fuel.

Everybody knew what to do. They scattered around. Everybody took up a

and two guys put their guns next to my head.

As the two guys got their guns pointed at me, I realized I'm the first to go.

They figure if there's a rescue attempt, they're all going to get shot anyway,

but they're going to make sure that they kill the prisoner.

The first shots are going to be for me.

The helicopter just eventually faded off and took off, and that was it.

Everybody has this big sigh of relief.

the next morning.

Somebody asked me, do you want to bathe?

They take me down this trail.

I looked over on the rocks.

Everybody's in their underwear and just bathing.

And probably 5 % of the force was a female.

And I remember saying to myself, who's going to believe this if I tell them

I was being held prisoner in the mountains by women in black lace

That would be a tough one to explain.

They asked me if I wanted to have sex with her.

He said, I can arrange it.

And it just seemed to me that that was just some kind of little test to see

I'd say.

And I said, yeah, ordinarily I'd like to, but,

you know, that prostate cancer I have, it's got me impotent.

I just remember getting the first bit of cool water. It was like...

Relief.

It was probably my only moment of levity during the entire experience.

The tough guys came for me again.

Tranquilo!

Tranquilo.

Told me to put my hands behind my back and tied me up.

They took me off through the woods.

They were marching me somewhere.

But this is the first time I'd ever been moved tied up.

They had this little pit dug for me.

A man -sized pit.

Pretty

clear what

it's for.

It's a grave.

There's somebody behind me, and I can hear the...

clackety -clack, and the bullet going into the breech.

I'm thinking of my daughter, and, you know,

She's not going to know.

And it's not whether or not they're going to kill me.

It's whether somebody's ever going to find me.

The shock of it hits you. It's like being hit with a baseball bat.

It made me pee in my pants.

They were laughing.

It was nothing serious to them.

They kept saying, tranquilo, tranquilo, you know.

Almost like they played a practical joke.

It was, come on, let's go have something to eat.

I'm baffled. Why would you do that?

And then say, let's go get something to eat.

What's next? Why are you doing this?

And if you're going to shoot somebody, shoot somebody. Why do you keep doing

this?

Everybody else had grown up in the mountains, but Anna spoke with a

dialect, and she was educated.

I needed information on what was going to happen.

She was my best shot for finding out what their plans were for me.

I had several opportunities to speak with Anna.

They're going to kill me.

Of course not.

We are a peaceful movement. We will not kill you.

She seemed like she was so idealistic, she didn't realize this is a war.

Did you shoot him?

Of course not.

I was cultivating a relationship for her. I was going to turn her.

I just couldn't walk around. I was down to staggering.

I'd lost 50 pounds in five weeks.

My limbs had shrunk, visually shrunk, and my hip bones were poking out.

This was when I realized that there was just no physical strength left in me.

They take me to a clearing, and there's a one -room wooden shack, and they lock

me up in the shack.

I said, what do you mean freed? She said, you know, it's been agreed that

going to be released. And I said,

some of my friends paid the ransom, which was just a shot in the dark.

She said, no, there was no ransom.

Something politicos, basically it was a political decision.

But you must be really careful.

She says, they're going to give your body back, but I don't remember how she

phrased it, something they're going to enter your mind.

They're going to give them.

They have to give your body, but they won't give your mind. They're going to

take your mind.

And that was the last I got out of her.

They've turned on her, and you put to this, and they're calling her a traitor.

She disappeared.

And I didn't know if they had shot her or what.

One morning they were saying La Cruz Roja, La Cruz Roja, La Cruz Roja, which

means the Red Cross, and helicopters, helicopters.

I'm just going, what, what, what are you talking about, you know? And he said,

you've been freed. And I said, what, what's happening?

But we got to run or we're going to miss him.

I have zero strength, but I'm running.

There's only maybe three or four of us, and we leave the whole camp behind.

I'm thinking to myself, what am I going to do tonight? Tonight, I'm going to

have a beer, I'm going to have chicken.

And they're going, hurry up, hurry up.

They're going, you're going to miss the Red Cross helicopter.

And I'm thinking, this is it. I'm out of here. I'm out of here. I'm out of here.

And all I know is that I'm sure any minute a helicopter is going to land.

I'm straining to hear, and I'm straining to hear.

And I don't hear anything.

And

nothing

comes.

My mind was going.

I stopped and I looked at the situation, and I was babbling. I kept saying,

What's happening? Where's the helicopter? Is the helicopter coming?

my mud the whole time. I'd held it together, and I'd not questioned them.

And there I went, firing one question after another. And they all looked

and smiled, and they said, Quien sabe?

Who knows?

And then I look over, and I see a couple guys mocking me, like making fun of me.

They were, you know.

imitating what they'd seen me do and laughing.

And I said, whoa.

That's it. I'm over the edge.

The only way to get myself back, the only way to take control

was to sabotage my own health.

I'm done with their timetable. We're going to go on mine.

They brought me the food the next morning.

I was in a state of severe malnutrition.

I said, looks great, but I'm just not hungry.

I'm going to refuse to eat.

I'm just going to refuse to eat.

The first three days is hard, and I knew it was going to be hard.

They're starting to get a little bit concerned. This guy's not going to eat.

I remember when I trained in the Chinese arts, part of my training was

meditation drills that involved fasting.

You can live a month without food.

You need water and you need air, but you can go a month without food.

I said, I've got to accelerate this process.

Because they wanted me alive.

And I wasn't going to give them that.

I needed my own blood.

I had my original motorcycle keys. They never took them away from me.

And I took my motorcycle key.

I rammed it up my nose.

And I

sort

of wimped out at first. I put the key up there and wiggled it around and made

myself sneeze.

Then I smacked myself.

And I got blood coming.

Direct it down around my groin.

I can

see

all the blood on the front of my pants.

And I could tell they were alarmed, you know, because now I'm telling them I'm

not eating. And all of a sudden, they're seeing blood. And they came and they

said, what's going on? How come you're bleeding? I said, look, I told you guys,

I got this prostate cancer.

I'm peeing blood.

I can't eat.

I'm peeing blood.

So you make your decisions.

So they call out their own medic.

She's telling me if you can't eat, to take an IV.

And I said, I'm not going to do it.

There was one commandante that was king of the assholes.

He came in and he's screaming at me.

You take that IV or you're going to die. You understand that?

And at this point, I couldn't resist. I looked at him. I said.

I was basically calling this bluff.

You want to keep me alive?

You figure it out.

It's too problematic.

That night, I take the key.

And I'm ramming up further than I've rammed, and I smack myself harder. I

myself so hard, I couldn't stop the bleeding.

The

blood

won't stop, and it's going down my throat.

And I remember thinking to myself, the only food that I've had is my own

blood.

They came in the next morning.

Vamos.

Vamos. He said, vamos. You know, he even started to get up.

You, ayúdeme.

And I looked at him. I said, I can't.

I had nothing left in me. I couldn't get up.

Day four, five, six, whatever I was without food, I had nothing left in me.

I can't get up. And now these guys had to carry me.

And now I'm thinking, oh, so they are taking me off to shoot me because

they're going to do, they're not going to do it in front of anybody.

This is it.

They throw me over the side of a mule.

All of a sudden.

We got a full procession going, a full contingent of troops.

After a couple of hours, they

just stopped.

And now I'm thinking, what's up?

I look down and I see this dirt road.

And I'm, oh my God, it's a dirt road. You know, there's a road.

And I

look down

and I can't believe it.

There's a big wagon with a red crop.

It was overwhelming for me. I couldn't digest it.

I knew if I let myself believe it, this was my last shot. If I did that, there's

no coming back.

This Italian woman walks up to me, and she says, Hello, Mr. Eggstead.

I'm a delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross, and I'm here

to take you to a representative of your government.

I just couldn't believe she goes, No, no, no, it's true. Just relax.

And I...

I broke down. I was crying.

The FBI hostage relief team said, you're going to California, you're going to be

in the hospital. I said, no, I'm going to Argentina.

They said, you're serious. You want to keep going. We just thought you were

crazy and didn't know what you want. I said, I am fucking crazy, but I know

I want and I've got to keep going. If I don't continue, they win.

The ELN's official statement to the press was that I was released on

humanitarian grounds.

I don't know if that's true or not.

I think the only thing that I can do is turn the page.

It's going to eat me alive. If I get wrapped up in this revenge and this

there's enough of that. That's the reason Colombia is in this mess now,

cycle of violence, this cycle of revenge.

Living well is the best revenge for me.

The healing factor with going out and meeting the people of the world, look

in the eye, shake their hand, say howdy.

I am Glenn Hexton. I'm from California.

Came here to meet you and write about you.

Next week, Donald McIntyre presents a brand new show live from the criminal

hotspots of Britain. Next week, it's teen gang violence in Street Crime Live.

Next Monday at 9 on 5.