text: (CNN) -- An American man who was held in Aruba for nearly four months in connection with the disappearance of his traveling companion insisted Thursday he had nothing to do with her vanishing but said it will "weigh heavily on me for a very long time." 
  
  "I feel as if a person I cared about, a companion ... has disappeared on my watch," Gary Giordano said on ABC's "Good Morning America" in his first interview since being released from custody in Aruba earlier this week. 
  
  Giordano, 50, had been held in the disappearance of 35-year-old Robyn Gardner of Maryland. Giordano told authorities the two were snorkeling on August 2 when he signaled to Gardner to swim back. When he reached the beach, he told police, Gardner was nowhere to be found and has not been seen since. 
  
  "I only looked back when I hit a rock," he said, according to a transcript of a police interview obtained by CNN. "Before that, I did not look back. I was busy saving my life." 
  
  Aruban judges repeatedly granted requests to extend Giordano's detention, while the investigation continued. But last week, a judge rejected prosecutors' request to hold Giordano, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, for an additional 30 days. He was released Tuesday. 
  
  A three-judge panel of Aruban judges held a hearing Wednesday to review the decision to release Giordano, but upheld it. ABC aired a clip of an emotional Giordano learning of the decision at the airport. "I'd accepted the fact that they were going to keep me from my kids forever," he told reporters in the video. 