Of the many people thanked by Ingrid Betancourt for their roles in her rescue, including President Elvaro Uribe, none meant more to her than a jug-eared army corporal, a fellow hostage who saved her life in the jungle then emerged from captivity last week to news of a family tragedy.

A video of the hostages’ wild celebrations aboard the Colombian military helicopter that was flying them to safety shows Betancourt in tears, joyfully hugging Corporal William Perez, the man who became her closest companion for the last three years of her ordeal.

In her first public appearance on Wednesday, Betancourt shyly took the arm of the 33-year-old corporal and told a media horde: “I want to recognise him specially, because if it were not for William, I would not be here today.”

Perez was seized by guerrillas in 1998, but it was not until four years ago that he first set eyes on Betancourt. The pair eventually found themselves in the same hostage group and Perez, a military nurse, had to fight to keep his new friend alive after she succumbed to a series of intestinal infections and began to talk of suicide.

“In only two months she sank into such a sorry state that she nearly died,” he said. She developed a stomach ulcer, stopped eating and told Perez she wanted to die.

The corporal began to spoonfeed her scraps of rice, persuaded her captors to find her some medicines and continually urged Betancourt not to give up. “I told her the whole world was thinking of her,” he said. “I told her to be strong.”

When a picture was released by guerrillas showing Betancourt pale and seemingly emaciated, she was already on the road to recovery, Perez said. Many people were surprised by how well Betancourt appeared when she stepped to freedom last week. “Watching her get better gave me energy, too,” said Perez.

Betancourt’s reunion with her children and her subsequent meeting in Paris with President Nicolas Sarkozy were watched by millions around the world. Perez has not been so lucky. He returned to news that his father died a few months ago; then he heard that his grandmother had suffered a fatal heart attack when she learnt that he had been freed.

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