"I laid there for probably five minutes, then the entire night just erupted into automatic gunfire. My first initial thought is that we were being re-kidnapped by another group, or maybe it was al-Shabab [the Islamic military group in Somalia] — that was always the eminent threat, and then I knew there was no hope for survival if it was al-Shabab. And I just, I laid there and I prayed and I also just said, like, 'I can't survive another kidnapping. I've already learned this group. ... I'm so tired, I can't, I can't do this anymore.'
"The next thing I know, somebody pulls the blanket from my face and then I hear a man say my name. You know, I haven't heard anybody say my name in so long. And then he says, 'We're the American military, and we're here to save you, we're here to take you home. You're safe now.' And I ... was just in so much shock I just couldn't wrap my brain around it. The American military, they knew I was here? Americans are here? I'm not alone? One of them just scoops me up, I mean, like a movie, and just, you know, runs across the desert with me to a safe place, and they quickly give me medication and at one point form a ring around us because they weren't sure if the premises was completely safe."
On how she responded when a Navy SEAL asked if she'd forgotten anything at the camp
Buchanan: "I can't believe I did this, but I had a small little powder bag that they had let me keep, and inside I had re-stolen from them a ring that my mom had made, and I thought, 'I can't leave it here in the desert.' [Her mother had recently died.]
"And so I ask him to go back and get the bag for me. And, I mean, these men are just, they're incredible. He goes back out, into a war zone basically, to go get my ring. And then he comes back with the bag."
On being reunited at a base in Italy, where military personnel told them to take things slow
Buchanan: "Our first meeting was one hour. I don't think either one of us could have handled any more."
Landemalm: "No. No, it was — I mean, inside of yourself you want to talk about everything. But I think that [in] one hour you are able to kind of relay the main message that you love each other and that whatever has happened during these 93 days we have the rest of our lives to talk about it."
NPR Coverage Of The Kidnapping
The Two-Way
In Daring Raid, Navy SEALs Free 2 Aid Workers From Somali Kidnappers