Port Harcourt, Nigeria ? Striking Nigerian oil workers Friday released the first of hundreds of people they have held for days on oil rigs — part of an agreement to free all the captives.

The release of the first hostage came after Houston-based Transocean Inc. struck an accord with the strikers, who have demanded the reinstatement of fired workers and that they be transported to the rigs by helicopters, not boats.

More than 250 hostages — including 35 Britons, 17 Americans and two Canadians — have been held by approximate 100 strikers since April 19 aboard four oil installations.

Paul Baker, of Britain, was the first foreigner flown to safety to Port Harcourt. His face unshaven, he alit from a helicopter with eight Nigerians, including at least two captors.

“Everybody is fine onboard, they all just want to go home,” Baker, a 25-year oil rig veteran with Transocean, told reporters.

Baker said he believed the rest of the hostages would be airlifted out during the next three days.

The veteran worker said he was chosen to be on the first off the helicopter because his wife is pregnant. “In my 25 years, I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.

He said logistical difficulties were preventing an immediate, massive evacuation from the rigs, some 40 miles off Nigeria’s southern coast.

A pilot said several more loads of hostages and their captors would be arriving today in Port Harcourt.

Baker said he wasn’t hurt physically but the strikers would make threats over the oil installation’s public-address system, announcing “if we don’t do as they say, we’re all going to die.”

“It wasn’t very pleasant,” he said.

Transocean officials and the strikers’ chosen negotiators agreed to the hostages’ release earlier Friday, although they postponed taking a decision on some of the strikers’ main demands until heads cooled, according to statement signed by all parties released after the talks.

“Striking personnel are now cooperating and have granted access to the rigs, and the company has begun transporting nonessential personnel to shore,” Transocean said in a statement.