A US citizen who was jailed in a Syrian prison for months after entering the country on foot has reportedly been rescued by men with hammers when rebels overturned Bashar al-Assad's administration.
The guy, later named as Travis Timmerman by the BBC's US news partner CBS, was discovered by people near Damascus.
Social media footage showed him lying on a sofa while people talking with local reporters.
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Mr Timmerman claimed he was arrested upon entering the country seven months ago. He was reported missing in May and last seen in Budapest, Hungary, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Hungarian authorities.
On Monday, a day after rebels took control of Damascus and deposed Assad, Mr Timmerman said that two men armed with hammers forced down his prison cell door.
It was "busted down, it woke me up," he said. "I expected more active combat as the guards were still present... There was no opposition or fighting until we got out. The 30-year-old said he fled prison with a large group of individuals and was trying to get to Jordan.
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He admitted that he "had a few moments of fear" when he fled the prison, but that he had afterwards become more concerned with finding somewhere to sleep. He informed reporters that locals had responded favorably to his appeals for food and aid were mostly coming to me,"
Mr Timmerman recalled. Since Assad's demise over the weekend, thousands of detainees have been released. Men, women, and even children have been seen exiting from cramped windowless cages, frequently disoriented and uninformed of what was going on outside having reasonably good care, telling CBS, "I'm doing fine.