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From Wondery, I'm Cassie DePackle and this is Against the Odds.

Today we wrap up our series on Jessica Buchanan, a humanitarian aid worker who survived 93 days in captivity after she was kidnapped by Somali land pirates.

She was held at gunpoint, kept outdoors in the desert, starved and deprived of medication she needed for kidney infection, but she didn't give up.

She fought every day to stay alive, thinking about her husband Eric hundreds of miles away. And then on January 25th, Navy SEAL Team 6 parachuted into Somalia in one of the most dangerous rescue missions ever undertaken.

She described her memory of the first moments of the rescue mission on 60 minutes.

And I think, okay, well, this is it. This really is truly the end. And I cover up with my blanket again and I just start saying, oh God, oh God, oh God.

And I just remember thinking, or maybe I'm saying out loud, like I cannot survive this.

Since that day, Jessica has turned her trauma into something good. She's an inspirational public speaker who encourages people to tap into their resilience.

And Jessica is here with me today. Hi, Jess. Welcome to against the odds.

Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much for coming on the show. This is unbelievable that I'm here with you right now and I honestly can't even believe it.

Well, sometimes I feel that way too. So I'm glad we're both here.

I have so many questions about the kidnapping and the experience of being held hostage. I can't even imagine. Do a lot of people say that to you? Like they can't even imagine and they're just kind of dumbfounded?

Yeah, I think that's generally the response I got. You know, I'm out sharing my story publicly a lot.

And people will say that and they'll also say like I just could never have done that. And I'm like, of course you could because what else were you going to do?

Yeah, it's kind of like about survival, right? Like what was the first thing on your mind? Like right when you got out?

I mean, the thing I was thinking about was getting back to my husband, Eric, you know, I think there were so many moments that I had to just scrape for hope that I was going to make it out alive and get back to my husband, get back to my family and my dad, my sister, my brother.

That was everything that was on my mind was just getting back to my people.

Jessica, I want to hear about the place in Somalia where you were kidnapped and held for 93 days. What was it like there?

It's actually called the Green Line and it was this invisible kind of territorial boundary that separated the town of Galcaio Somalia where I was working for this particular field mission.

And the town was divided into North Galcaio and South Galcaio. Predominantly, they were kind of controlled, if you will, by two different clans. And these clans had a lot of conflict over basic resources.

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