Gerco van Deventer is a former Operational Emergency Care Practitioner, specialist in hostage survival and mental resilience, and South Africa’s longest-held hostage. With a career spanning military medicine, high-risk security environments and over six years in captivity by al-Qaeda, Gerco is hired as a speaker for his extraordinary insight into human endurance, psychological resilience and survival under extreme conditions.
Gerco began his career in 1994 with the South African Military Health Services, joining the elite 7 Medical Battalion Group as an Operational Emergency Care Practitioner. As an advanced life support medic, he was attached to 4 and 5 Special Forces Regiments, 1 Parachute Battalion and supported the Police Special Task Force. His early career placed him in some of the most demanding operational environments, where precision, calm decision-making and mental control were essential. He left the military in 2004, transitioning briefly into the private sector as a surgical product specialist and product manager.
In 2009, Gerco moved into the security and risk sector, working across fragile and conflict-affected regions. He served in Afghanistan as a Deputy Security Coordinator and Medic at the Kabul Power Plant and was later promoted to Deputy Operations Manager. He went on to manage a clinic for the Puntland Maritime Police Force in Somalia and worked as a Mobile Security Coordinator and Medic on the Gardez–Khost highway project. In 2014, he was promoted to Project Risk and Security Manager in Kabul, overseeing complex operations in high-threat environments.
In 2017, while working as a Site Medic on a power station project in Libya, Gerco was ambushed and kidnapped. He spent more than six years in captivity, first in Libya and then in the deserts of Mali, held by JNIM, al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate. Released in December 2023, Gerco emerged with profound insight into survival psychology, adaptability and hope under sustained trauma. In 2024, he returned to professional survival training, participating in advanced SERE training with the Royal Dutch Air Force. Gerco is hired as a speaker for his deeply human, practical and inspiring perspective on resilience, mental endurance and surviving the unimaginable.
