Elite mountaineer Tommy Caldwell was on the verge of breaking.
The 21-year-old and his three friends experienced a nightmare in the unforgiving mountains of Kyrgyzstan after being captured by armed rebels.
With dwindling supplies, they had endured brutal marches over dangerous hills, relentless gunfire, and the traumatic execution of a fellow prisoner before them.
On the sixth day they felt desperate. Their captors showed no signs of release and the climbers increasingly feared they would not make it out alive.
Suddenly an opportunity for escape presented itself and Caldwell made a split-second decision that would change his life forever.
Seizing the opportunity to save himself and his companions, he grabbed the gun belt of their sole captor and hurled him off a cliff.
He watched in amazement as the rebel’s body fell thirty feet, ricocheted off a ledge and disappeared into the dark abyss below.
In that terrifying moment, the young climber truly believed he had killed a man – something he never thought possible.
Fast forward to the present and Caldwell has now revealed how he is surprised the harrowing experience in 2000 has not left him more traumatised.
Pictured: Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, Jason Smith and John Dickey speak to reporters aboard a helicopter in Kyrgyzstan after their escape
Pictured: Kyrgyzstan’s Pamir-Alai Mountains, where Caldwell and his friends were captured
Caldwell was taken hostage by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan during a trip to Kyrgyzstan in 2000
Caldwell is currently promoting his National Geographic documentaryThe Devil’s Climb, which chronicles his latest adventure with Free Solo fame Alex Honnold.
The duo attempted to break a world record by climbing the five enormous, icy granite towers of Alaska’s Devil’s Thumb in one day – after a grueling 4,600-kilometer bike ride across North America.
The mountain is notoriously dangerous and known for its avalanches and brutal storms, with few successful summits in history.
Caldwell viewed the journey as a test of human endurance and embraced the challenge of relying solely on one’s own power to reach such a remote location.
During the film, he talked about how past setbacks and personal setbacks had helped him take on the new high-stakes adventure after suffering an Achilles injury that left him multiple operations.
He compared training resilience to building muscle, explaining that it requires consistent practice.
“You’re just exposing yourself to mildly traumatizing things, in slightly increased doses over time,” he said Business insider. “You’re used to that.”
Caldwell also recalled making the difficult decision to push his captor off a cliff which he believed had “more psychological power” and strengthened his belief in himself.
The ordeal occurred in 2000 when he and his then-girlfriend Beth Rodden had embarked on an expedition to Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous region bordering China.
While camping on a cliff early one morning, gunfire shattered the dawn and the climbers were taken hostage by armed rebels from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who were at war with the Kyrgyz government.
For six days, Rodden, Caldwell and their companions, John Dickey and Jason Smith, were forced to deal with both the physical hardships of their captivity and the psychological toll of being held by violent militants.
Pictured: Tommy Caldwell with his wife Rebecca Pietsch and their son and daughter
Seizing the opportunity to save himself and his companions, Caldwell grabbed the gun belt of their sole captor and hurled the man twenty feet off the cliff.
Caldwell, then 21, recalled the moment of their capture National Geographic in a 2003 interview it was reported that the group was awakened by three gunshots near where they were sleeping.
Caldwell said, “We were looking through our camera lenses and we could see them waving at us and they kept shooting at us. And they got pretty close.”
John offered to investigate and quickly messaged back, urging the group to get off the cliffs where three rebels were waiting at the base of the mountain.
Rodden recalled that the men had full beards, were dressed in military fatigues and armed with rifles, grenades, pistols and knives.
Although the rebels initially seemed friendly, the climbers understood that their captors were dangerous and that obedience was the only option for survival.
The rebels forced the climbers to lead them to their main camp, where they looted their belongings and ate their food.
In the camp they encountered another prisoner, a Kyrgyz soldier, who told them through gestures that the rebels had killed many soldiers and had no intention of releasing their prisoners.
As they trekked through the wilderness, they had to avoid government helicopters searching for the rebels.
Caldwell recalled, “When a helicopter flew over, they pointed their guns at us and told us to hide in the bushes. And at one point, one of the rebels in the bushes pointed the gun directly at John’s head and said, “If you move, you’re dead.”
The situation took a darker turn when a firefight broke out between the rebels and Kyrgyz soldiers. The group hid in the bushes as the bullets flew by and witnessed the rebels executing the captured soldier.
“We were just hiding in the bushes and there were bullets going through the bushes, so our captors told us to run to this rock. But first they told the Kyrgyz soldier who was with us to run there. When he got behind the rock, we heard two bangs and they executed him,” Caldwell said.
With food running out and their situation becoming increasingly desperate, the climbers resort to rationing energy bars. Caldwell and Jason regularly discussed escape plans, but Rodden feared this would result in certain death.
The opportunity presented itself unexpectedly when three of the rebels moved on, leaving only one man to guard the climbers as they ascended a steep ridge.
As they neared the top, Caldwell seized the opportunity. “I ran after him, grabbed him by his gun belt and pulled him over the edge,” he said.
“We were probably about 2,000 feet above the river, but it’s a cliff that’s quite steep. We saw him fall twenty feet, bounce off this edge, and then fall into the black abyss below.”
Caldwell, overwhelmed by what he had just done, collapsed.
‘I completely panicked. I broke down. “I couldn’t believe I had just done that because it’s something I never morally thought I could do and never wanted to do,” he said.
The climbers fled and ended up hours later in a Kyrgyz army camp.
To Caldwell’s surprise, the man he thought he killed survived the fall. However, the rebel was later captured by Kyrgyz soldiers and sentenced to death.
‘I completely panicked. I broke down. “I couldn’t believe I had just done that because it’s something I never morally thought I could do and never wanted to do,” he said.
When discussing why the traumatic kidnapping experience no longer affected him in his National Geographic documentary, he offered a possible theory from reading a book by psychotherapist Peter Levine called “Waking the Tiger.”
The book suggests that people who cope best with trauma are those who find ways to regain control in dangerous situations, Business Insider reports.
“In Kyrgyzstan, I was the one who made the difficult decision,” he said. “I was the one who decided to get us out of there by pushing this guy off a cliff.”
“Now I know that if I’m in a difficult situation, I can do the right things to get out of it.”
After surviving the kidnapping, a freak accident led to the amputation of his left index finger during a home renovation.
Doctors predicted this would end his climbing career, but Caldwell refused to accept that fate and instead used it as motivation to exceed expectations – including free climbing the 3,000-foot vertical wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, which later became a movie called The Dawn Wall.