Freed hostage’s Colombian fiancee travels to Texas

Patricia Medina told Colombia’s RCN Radio in an interview broadcast Saturday that she and Stansell plan to get married. She spoke before leaving Colombia Friday for San Antonio, Texas, where he and two other Americans were taken after Colombia’s military rescued them from rebels.Medina was pregnant when the U.S. defense contractor’s drug-surveillance plane went down in Colombia’s southern jungle in February 2003. He later learned in captivity that she had given birth to twins, Nicolas and Keith.”We’re going to organize the wedding,” Medina said. “We talked to Keith last night. He talked with the boys.”She said Stansell told her “he’s super happy, and that he’s waiting for us there.”Former Colombian Sen. Luis Eladio Perez, who was freed in February, says he relayed Stansell’s marriage proposal to Medina back then, and she accepted.Medina met Stansell in April 2002 while working as a flight attendant on an Avianca flight.Stansell and the two other freed American hostages — Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes — have been receiving medical care at Brooke Army Medical Center at San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston. The three were working for a Northrop Grumman Corp. subsidiary when they were taken captive.They were among 15 hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 11 Colombians, rescued by Colombia’s military in a daring mission Wednesday.Stansell, who has other children from a previous marriage, has also been reunited with 16-year-old Kyle and 19-year-old Lauren, his ex-wife Kelly Coady said by phone from Sarasota, Florida.

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