Kiwi storyteller stuck to just one yarn a day

By ALISON HORWOOD

In the dead of night, armed guerrillas threatened to slit Dennis Corrin's throat if he refused to fly a helicopter loaded with fellow hostages across the South American jungle to a makeshift prison.

Fearing for his life, the 52-year-old Nelson-based pilot used broken Spanish and gestures to say he did not fly that type of helicopter.

After several tense minutes, his captors, brandishing automatic weapons including M16s, AK47s and Uzis, forced a French pilot to fly over the oil-rich jungle.

Back in his hometown yesterday, a frail-looking Mr Corrin recounted the terrifying start to his 147-day drama as a hostage.

Last October, he took up a contract in northern Ecuador, using an Air-Crane S-64 to move oil rig pipes for USA-based company Erickson Air Crane. Less than a week after arriving, he and nine others were snatched from their camp near Lago Agrio.

Two French men later escaped and an American, Ronald Sander, was executed in January.

Mr Corrin and the remaining hostages were released a week ago for a reported $30 million ransom.

During yesterday's press conference, Mr Corrin spoke quietly, smiled several times, and his voice cracked with emotion only once as he recounted the shock of discovering that a comrade of three months - Mr Sander - was not in the arms of his family as they had been told, but had been murdered.

Mr Corrin said he was 11kg lighter and felt slightly fragile. "If anyone is nice to me I can crack up easily."

But true to the Kiwi character his mates describe him as, he summed up his overall condition as "fine - I'll be right."

He said he survived almost five months of captivity looking down the muzzle of a gun by thinking of his family and forming close bonds with his comrades.

It was 4 am on October 12 when up to 40 heavily armed guerrillas raided their camp.

"They gave instructions in Spanish, which are self-explanatory when there is a gun pointing at you. They broke into the communications department and smashed everything. They gave us a couple of minutes to collect some clothes and put our boots on.

"We were terrified. We thought we all might be shot there and then."

The hostages were put on to a helicopter and flown to a hide-out deep in the jungle. For more than four months, they were kept on the move and stayed in each camp no longer than 30 days. The weather was so humid that their clothes never dried. The terrain was dense, steep and difficult to negotiate.

For the first nine days they slept on the ground. "We would wake up with ants crawling all over us."

After that, they slept in hammocks strung from a tree. At night, they were often chained together by the ankles. They suffered diarrhoea and horrific insect bites.

Twice a day, they were fed rice, tinned fish and anything the guerrillas shot - including rodents, which Mr Corrin described as "quite nice."

They whiled away their time playing chess and whispering so the guards would not hear. Known as a story-teller among his friends, Mr Corrin said he had to limit himself to "one yarn a day so he wouldn't run out."

He even gave a lecture on the royal family - "but only because there was no one to contradict him."

The threat of violence was constant. The guerrillas took out their pistols when someone went to the toilet, and threatened to kill any escaper.

Mr Corrin said the hostages were told that Mr Sander had been released. Instead, his bullet-riddled body was found on a jungle road on January 31. A sign around his neck said in Spanish, "I am a gringo. For non-payment of ransom."

During the hostages' time in the jungle they knew little of the outside world except that the Ecuadorean military was looking for them.

At night, the two hostages who understood Spanish listened to the whispered conversations of the guerrillas.

One day they saw a helicopter flying overhead and hoped it carried the cash that would buy their freedom. "The day we were released was the biggest day of our lives."

The guerrillas turned the hostages into the jungle with instructions on how to get out. They walked for three or four hours - at one stage hearing heavy gun-fire behind them - and eventually met a farmer.

They were taken to the capital, Quito, and flown to the United States, where Mr Corrin was met by his wife, Marguerite, children Timm and Maree and new grandson Mac. Mr Corrin described the reunion as "dramatic."

He said he wanted to continue working for Erickson, but not in Ecuador.

In the meantime he would spend time with his family, including his elderly mother, Mary Corrin, who is in Nelson Hospital. He also intended to keep in contact with his former hostages, with whom he had formed a life-long bond.

He said he was not sure whether he hated the guerrillas, but he had no respect for what they did.

With a smile, he said: "I think they deserve a fair trial and a fair hanging."

Herald Online feature: Kidnapped in Ecuador