VALENCIA, Venezuela – His eyes tearing up with emotion, Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos embraced his rescuers Saturday and said he had wondered whether he would survive a two-day kidnapping ordeal that ended when commandos swept into his captors’ mountain hideout. Ramos said that he was thankful to be alive.

The authorities were still searching for at least four Colombian men who escaped during the rescue, Tareck El Aissami said.

Ramos, 24, was seized at gunpoint outside his family’s home Wednesday night and whisked away in an SUV. It was the first known kidnapping of a Major League Baseball player in Venezuela. El Aissami said investigators’ first break in the case came when they found the kidnappers’ stolen SUV.

Once investigators thought they had found the general area where Ramos might be, President Hugo Chavez personally authorized an aerial search mission and teams also set out on foot in the mountainous area, El Aissami said. He said the teams searched most of the day on Friday and finally came upon the remote house where Ramos was being held.

The two-day search involved about 200 police and National Guard troops as well as helicopters.